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Liam's London Diary
Monday September 3rd
I would like to talk about the Irish and how we avail of drop-in and social support groups.
I had occasion last Tuesday to go to an Irish mental health drop-in group based in Paddington, West London. The numbers for this group vary from week to week, anything from a couple to five or six people with some support staff, and the activities range from Irish stew dinners to picnics in the back garden. It works best for me when the group blends in conversation and there are a whole raft of topics which engage a lot of the Irish living in London.
There are many common factors which cause stress and unhappiness amongst the Irish in London.
Isolation from their common and native culture is a major one. Many Irish presume that just because we have English as a common language that our cultures are similar and nearly interchangeable. That would be a big mistake for the Irish attitude to life is very different with its emphasis on being an individual yet enjoying the social interaction with wit and humour sometimes described as the craic. The English approach is much more orderly and systematic with its emphasis on convention and surface manners as all important. I have a great regard for Londoners and liked London from the first day that I set foot in it but the English are inclined to be pack animals and gather round their leader with a slightly slavish attitude until their interests are served better by another. Then its a bloody death for the previous supremo.
There is a shy and sensitive nature in the Irish character
and they hesitate to assert themselves or stand out boldly from the crowd. Certainly to admit to any sort of a mental problem is anathema to the Irish character for that is one difficulty that has to be dragged screaming from the Irish psyche. The professionals in the London mental health services say that Irish people have difficulty in coming forward to avail themselves of their rights and this in itself causes problems for if the authorities are not aware of the numbers suffering they do not provide services to alleviate it.
It has been said that the Irish are mistrustful of authority
mainly for historical reasons when to be seen to approach those who were controlling and putting down the people was not socially acceptable to their neighbours. Whatever the reason many Irish do not project themselves and suffer on in ignorance, not availing themselves of whatever help is there. I see it all to clearly among my own friends. They will meet in the pubs and clubs and pass on ways and means of beating or possibly even fiddling the system. This does not cause them any concern for they believe that is the only way then can survive in an alien environment.
I have been very shocked recently on learning of the
number of Irish engaged in crime
of all sorts. A nice Irish pensioner friend of mine told me he had something to tell me and that was that he had done a total of seventeen years for burglary. I was amazed but I do not think that I should be for the relationship between being Irish in London and crime is quite high. What I have been told for sure is that the Irish rank in the very highest figures for depression, anxiety, suicide including admission to psychiatric hospitals. In the fringe areas of homelessness, alcoholism and drug addiction the Irish have again a very high incidence. What I am really saying is that in many of the Irish in London there is a rotting insecurity which erodes self confidence and the ability to deal with the very tough living conditions of London.
The matter of attending to our religion,
in most cases Catholicism, is of much concern. In my own case I seem to be caught in a double bind. If I go there I regret that the old fear and hell damnation has driven me to it, yet if I don?t go along I miss the social occasion which it very often is. I like the Irish atmosphere of the Quex road church in Kilburn with the rosy red faces of the congregation and the big strong hands grasping yours and whispering ?peace be with you? at the end of the mass. It brings back memories of more settled times in the Dublin of my youth and the consolation of good memories. The chat around the church door could be anywhere in Ireland and then having catered for the spiritual man there is a gradual movement, especially after the Saturday evening mass, to a decent hostelry for a couple of well earned pints.
On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.
On Raglan Road by Patrick Kavanagh
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