Helping Irish emigrants move back home: ‘The day I left Ireland I said I will be back’

A couple of years before rural GP Dr Jerry Cowley founded Safe Home Ireland in 1999, he helped Achill woman Mary Caffrey return home to a little house in St Brendan’s Village, a voluntary housing association he helped establish in the village of Mulranny, Co Mayo.

In 1935, when Mary was 13, she was sent “into service” to a big house in London. In those days it was either that or head off tattie hokin’ (potato gathering) in Scotland for many Achill islanders.

Wearing her first pair of shoes, the pint-sized teenager was fascinated by the sound they made on the cobbled streets of leafy London. For the following two years, she recalled in interviews she gave after her return home over 60 years later, she could have bathed in the huge pots and pans she washed.

Initially as a result of the downturn and further exacerbated by Covid, waiting times to secure a social housing tenancy have increased significantly, especially in all our cities

—  Karen McHugh, Safe Home Ireland chief executive

Thus began a hard life, which included a stint tattie hokin’, with Mary ultimately living in a high-rise apartment block in Manchester, often afraid to go out lest she be the victim of a mugging.

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Speaking on Mid-West Radio on her centenary birthday in November 2021, Mary said: “I live in one of the little houses here [St Brendan’s Village] and I’m so happy, I don’t want to die!”

Sadly, the centenarian died earlier this year but for Dr Cowley, life president of Safe Home, her story was the genesis of the charity which has now helped 2,237 Irish emigrants to return home.

Earlier in December, Safe Home Ireland marked its 21st anniversary by publishing a detailed report of its work to date, entitled, “A Hand from Home”. It has contributions from its long-time patron, President Michael D Higgins, and its first ambassador, singer Seán Keane, a one-time emigrant and the star of a series of fundraising concerts.

The report outlines the expansion of Safe Home’s work remit to facilitate the changing profile of emigrants and their needs when going through the process of returning home.

Outreach support

Dr Cowley explains: “Over the last 21 years, while continuing our housing work helping qualifying older Irish emigrants, in conjunction with housing associations and county councils, we also now offer an extensive information, advocacy and outreach support service for anyone, regardless of age, location or circumstances.”

The organisation employs five people, operates throughout the republic, and is financially supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs (Emigrant Support Programme), as well by a number of other donors and funders.

Its chief executive, Karen McHugh, acknowledges that the present housing crisis is creating challenges.

“There is still access to housing under the scheme that we facilitate, which allows qualifying older Irish emigrants to access housing association properties for older people. However, certainly due to the lack of new-builds over recent years, initially as a result of the downturn and further exacerbated by Covid, waiting times to secure a social housing tenancy have increased significantly, especially in all our cities,” she says.

Regarding the organisation’s broader support and advocacy for other returning emigrants, this housing shortage causes more complex challenges.

“For younger people and families seeking to return home, accessing any type of affordable long-term rented accommodation is something that is presenting as a huge barrier. Even where people have funds, the housing is just not available, or where it is available the demand locally means that for people searching from abroad, it is gone before they have a chance to proceed with plans,” she says.

I gave up school earlier than intended because of chest problems caused by having to sit in damp clothes after the walk to school

—  Bridget Flannery, returning emigrant

Safe Home has a policy of trying to relocate people as close to their native place or preferred option as possible.

Finding a house wasn’t the problem for returning emigrant, Bridget Flannery, a native of Erris, in Co Mayo. The second eldest of a family of 12, she left for England in 1974, aged 19, but always with the full intention of coming home to her native place.

Daunting experience

“I gave up school earlier than intended because of chest problems caused by having to sit in damp clothes after the walk to school. My eldest sister had left already and she came home and said why don’t you come back with me,” recalls Bridget.

She found the whole experience daunting but, she says, that was the reality in those days for big families in rural Ireland.

“You had to make your own life and send home what you could.”

Bridget worked “as a maid” in a big hospital in London first and, she adds: “God help you if your cap wasn’t straight when matron did her rounds”.

“I worked there for over 14 years and I loved it. I enjoyed caring for the older people,” she says.

The loneliness was always there, though, and during the first years she would regularly imagine literally walking all the way home across England and Ireland to the parish of Kilcommon.

“We returned home every single year through Holyhead with big cases stuffed with gifts. They weren’t luxuries, mainly clothes for my younger siblings. I’d come home twice if Mayo was in the All-Ireland. They never won, though,” recalls Bridget.

After Bridget left the hospital, she worked in a leading London department store for 27 years, travelling up and down the motorway to Luton where she had bought a house. She also trained as a special constable during this time, a voluntary role that fulfilled a childhood wish to become a member of An Garda Síochána.

“The day I left Ireland I said I will be back and even though I was happy, I always saw myself as being in England only for financial reasons,” she says.

Filled with cracks

In 1999, her hard work meant she was in a position to buy a piece of land in her home place and by 2004 she had started the building project with the help of her brother, who had returned from the UK and was a builder. Ironically, that house, which she returned finally to live in full-time last year, is filled with cracks, has pyrite, and will now have to be knocked down.

Bridget is philosophical and says it is just “one of the many challenges” she has been faced with over her life, challenges that have certainly been made easier since her return home through the help of Safe Ireland.

The connection all started while she was involved with a befriending initiative at the Luton Irish Forum. It was there that she heard about the Safe Ireland Programme, whose outreach staff would come to the centre and give advice to emigrants.

However, it was after she had moved back home last year and was struggling with bureaucracy and all the various documents – from getting a PPS number and a medical card to re-registering her car – that Safe Home Ireland really helped.

The connection to home remains strong ... Not just for those who have a yearning to return home one day, but also for those who are happy and settled in their adopted countries. They do not forget Ireland

—  Karen McHugh, Safe Home Ireland chief executive

“I was exhausted and struggling and going in and out of Belmullet every day trying to sort out my affairs. I phoned Safe Home and one of their members came out to my house and went through all my documents. She knew what to apply for and what not to bother with, and she also labelled up my paperwork,” she continues.

“Safe Home was amazing. I felt I had somebody at my back to help me and they are there still,” Bridget says.

Bridget’s experience resonates for Karen McHugh and in many ways underscores the importance of emotional support for such returning emigrants.

McHugh says: “In our work with Irish emigrants over the past 20 years, it seems to be recognition and the connection with home that is a major factor. For those who were the generation of forced emigrants, recognition that leaving was a sacrifice for them and being here to support them on their return, highlighting issues of importance to Irish communities abroad and challenges around returning, is giving something back.”

“The connection to home remains strong within the psyche of the Irish abroad,” McHugh says. “Not just for those who have a yearning to return home one day, but also for those who are happy and settled in their adopted countries. They do not forget Ireland and it is important to them that Ireland does not forget them.”

Thus “the helping hand” provided by the outreach support service is key to this complex transition, which is not only about finding a home. Moreover, she says, it is not just about “getting into the system” which is a fundamental step towards “integration into a community”.

“It is also about the returning emigrant sharing their wealth of experience and knowledge and enriching the communities they have returned to,” Karen McHugh says.

safehomeireland.com