Noreen's
Story
I
was born in County Limerick, the eldest of a family of 8. We
lived on our parent’s farm until I was 14. My parents went
through financial difficulties in the late fifties. My father
went to England in 1959 to get a job, he stayed with my
mother’s sister and her family, and he got a job as a store
man at Smith & Nephew in Welwyn Garden City. We ran the
farm for the next year, in 1960 he let the farm and we all
came to England, he only wanted to stay to get enough money to
go back to farming, with such a large family he found it
difficult to rent a house, so with letting money from the farm
of £500 he put a deposit on a small house in Luton, he found
the move from Ireland to England and from town to country at
52 years of age a very big change, he never settled here.
I
had started secondary school before we left; when we came here
I missed the eleven plus exam. I ended up at what is now the
Luton University, in those days it was then called Luton
College of Technology however my parent’s financial position
was even worse than the last years in Ireland so I left the
college and got a job in an accountants office as an office
junior, I found it a very big change from school in Ireland to
college in England.
I
changed jobs a few times in the years since I met my husband,
who comes from Cavan, we married in 1971. I have 3 children;
my parents returned to Ireland in 1975, I spent lots of
holidays with them when my children were young. They returned
to Limerick city, most of my family live in Ireland; I still
visit Ireland about twice a year.
If you would like to contribute your story
from Ireland to Luton or would like to write an article an any
aspect of Irish life in Luton, please send an email to irishlife@lutonirishforum.org
