I was born in 1934 in a village in Donegal called Buncrana. A small village with a population of less than 2000. The family name is very unusual, we can trace our roots back to part of the Spanish Armada which was blown ashore on the west of Ireland County Clare.

After finishing at the national school I went to college in Belfast across the border St Collins College I was there for 5 years until I was 18. I used to go up on the bus every day and met a protestant lad who went to the Protestant college. One Saturday he said he was playing rugby and he invited me down to watch. So after we finished college we went down to watch and they were a man short and they asked me if I'd play and I'd never played rugby in my life before! The two communities were very segregated and no one would've believed that I a catholic boy played rugby for a protestant team.

After I left St Collins I went to a commercial college to learn book keeping and it was mixed and everybody got on very well together in school but they never socialised afterwards.

You have to remember there was no work what so ever, particularly in the North West of Ireland. In the village I was born there was four shirt factories which gave ample employment for the ladies, but not for the men except occasional building work and a flour mill. Before I came to England I had a couple of part time jobs. There was a phrase there: "waiting in dead mans shoes" no one retired they worked on until their 70's. I worked for a building firm and then the local transport firm the Londonderry Railway, they were the rail company before the war but afterwards they ran the buses and freight lorries. You had to wait for a vacancy to turn up and I worked all over Donegal as a relief until I was 21.

... one of the first impressions of Luton was it was something different to any town in Ireland. If you came from a small town the bus ran twice a day, then you come here and they're running all the time. ...

Then I came to England, I remember the day well, 31st July 1956. My mother was so upset, I had to go to Derry to get the train to Dunlerry. I remember getting off and there were people for whom it wasn't the first time and they saw the ship Princess Maud and people looked at it and said "no way are we going on that boat tonight there's a pub up the road we'll go there and come back in the morning." They really didn't want to catch that ship, there's no stabilisers on it you see, so it's a really rough ride.

My mother made sandwiches of course, and I remember waking up through the night on the train in England and looking and seeing places I had learned at school, I was quite good at geography when I was young: Crew, Rugby, Birmingham, they were all going past. I arrived at 6.30am at Euston station on the Aug Bank holiday, I never knew what a bank holiday was before then, it has no significance when you're working in a small town.

When I arrived I was fortunate, I was recruited by British Rail in Ireland. I had to go up to Dublin for a medical and after a while they sent you a letter to say you were accepted and they sent you a free ticket to get you over there. You had to report to the head office of the London region which was just outside Euston station, unfortunately I arrived on this bank hols and everything was closed.

A friend of the family's ran a guest house in Kilburn. The station master at Euston said come back tomorrow morning someone will be here then. So I went to stay with the friends and went back in the next morning. He said we've got plenty of places at Euston do you want to work in London? so I started a six month training course then I went to Watford. It was there that I met people from Luton, I didn't particularly like London, having come from a small town London was a bit daunting to tell you the truth.

I met these lads from Luton and St Albans and they said we've got vacancies out there so I applied. I remember the first digs I had there was a large house and all the people there were working on the motorway it was 1966. I remember Luton the centre at St Josephs in those days was a tin hut and on Sat/Sun night people would go there. The Cresta ball room, there were very good dances there on during the week you used to get the bands from London like Joe Loss and Terence Stapleton all the top dance bands would come. On Sun night there was an Irish club. In those days you couldn't go to a commercial dance hall on a Sunday but you could go as a club, I think it was two shillings and that got you your membership.

... Of course one of the advantages of working for the transport company was free travel and I'd take advantage of it and go all over the place. Even if you had a couple of hours between shift you'd say "where will I go this afternoon?" ...

There was always a strong supporting of Irish Clubs, maybe it was a bit of homesickness. You had the Gaelic games as well, the hurling and football teams. Teams used to come over from Ireland to play in London, every year the all Ireland Champions would come over and play a select team from England. And of course there was the Irish festivals here, in Luton in Stock well park. always well supported by the Irish, there was always a good sense of Irish identity you didn't want to drift away from your roots. It was very important to me. You would get Irish theatrical companies coming to London and I'd always go, plays by Joyce and O'Casey and others.

One of the first impressions I remember of England was listening to the commentary of a cricket match , I'd never heard of a cricket match before, one of the first impressions of Luton was it was something different to any town in Ireland. If you came from a small town the bus ran twice a day, then you come here and they're running all the time.

Of course one of the advantages of working for the transport company was free travel and I'd take advantage of it and go all over the place. Even if you had a couple of hours between shift you'd say "where will I go this afternoon?" You'd very little options apart from going to your digs and staying there. We'd go to Leicester, Derby, Brighton just to have a look around and see different places.

There's not so many young people coming over now, it's virtually stopped. The community spirit is still there but you have to work a lot harder to get them out . The people that came over in the 50's and 70's have to accept that we've blended in, unless we can involve the younger people this generation now is the last one to be identified. You have to work very hard to get the second and third generations to identify as Irish.