Forgotten Irish forgotten
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By JOHN FALLON
A campaign aimed at helping the ‘forgotten’ Irish in Britain is to continue despite raising just over €2,000 of a targetted €1m by its St Patrick’s Day deadline.
The campaign aims to help hundreds of irish who are now in very poor circumstaces having emigrated to the UK in the ‘fifties and ‘sixties.
The campaign was launched six months ago through the travel website www.lookaroundireland.com and set a deadline of St Patrick’s Day to raise €1m for two charities which help the forgotten Irish.
The two charities — The Safe-Home Project based in Co. Mayo and the Irish Fund of Great Britain’s Forgotten Irish — help re-settle in Ireland those most in need.
The organiser and website director John McKeown said that while the response has been ‘very disappointing’ but he is going to keep the campaign going in the hope that funds will be pledged.
“The term ‘Forgotten Irish’ probably sums it all up. We were probably ambitious with the amount we aimed to raise but we are very disappointed with the response.
“Nevertheless, we will keep the campaign open in the hope that there will be a response,” said John, whose own father was one of the irish people who emigrated in the 1940s.
He set up the campaign after watching ‘The Forgotten Irish’ documentary on TV3 and decided to use his successful website in a bid to help the elderly and alone Irish in cities and towns throughout the United Kingdom.
Many of them had no choice but to emigrate during the 1940s, 50s and 60s but hundreds now live in near destitute throughout the United Kingdom.
“It is an era that is out of the spotlight and is not in people’s minds. Because it’s out of the spotlight it’s out of people’s minds. It won’t mean anything to people unless they can relate to the people who were forced to emigrate from Ireland in the ’50s and ’60s,” said John, who is from Liverpool but now lives in Louth.
