'You have kept our culture alive': Irish President Catherine Connolly visits famed Leeds Irish Centre

The Irish President spoke of her delight at returning to Leeds as she finished off her first trip to the UK with a stop off at the city’s famed Irish Centre.

The 10th president of the Republic was a student at the University of Leeds in 1981, where she studied a masters in Clinical Psychology.

On Wednesday (May 20) - her third and final day of a visit to the UK - Galway-born President Connolly paid a visit to her former university before heading to the country’s first purpose built Irish centre.

She was greeted by its well known manager of over 50 years standing, Tommy McLoughlin OBE, who said: “It is a great honour to welcome the President.”

Speaking in Gaelic and English, the 68-year-old barrister addressed the 200-strong audience, saying: “It is a regret of mine that I never visited here while at uni that year but I’m so pleased to visit now when relationships are so positive.”

She said the Irish diaspora had “influenced how we see the world and how the world sees us”.

Praising all the cultural and community work the centre does, she spoke of the pride they should feel. “You have kept our culture alive”, she said.

And she detailed how migrants had physically shaped the city, saying: “You don’t have to travel far to see how they built it. Irish hands were in the fabric of this country.”

She sang the praises of Irish women, who historically migrated in larger numbers than men because of the morality of the times. “Their contribution deserves special recognition.

“At one point there were 300,000 Irish nurses in the UK, one in eight in the NHS. They held it together in the early years.”

President Connolly went on to cite well know people with Yorkshire links including ex-Leeds United players Johnny Giles and Jack Charlton, who, she said, “gave Ireland hope” when he took the national squad to the World Cup in 1990 and 1994.

She also mentioned Patrick Brontë, the County Down father of the Brontë sisters.

Ending her speech, she said: “You are our nearest neighbour, our people and we can only learn from one another.”

Meanwhile, centre chairman Liam Thompson, said: “It is a rare honour to welcome a president of Ireland over here.”

Her visit came two days after she met with King Charles at Buckingham Palace and invited him to visit Ireland next year.

As one onlooker in Leeds quipped: “She’ll get just as great a welcome here at the centre as she did at the palace!”

The centre recently celebrated its 55th anniversary while Tommy, whose parents hailed from Mayo, also notched up a half century of service to the centre, the Irish diaspora and wider communities across the north of England.

President Connolly, 68, congratulated him on the achievement.

Over 200 people of Irish descent travelled to the centre from as far afield as Scotland and Birmingham to meet President Connolly. They all had links with Irish community groups and organisations.

After her speech, she went from table to table to meet them all.

It is thought up to 525,000 Irish born people live in the UK now, according to recent polls, with one in 10 of the population having an Irish grandparent. The county of Yorkshire has welcomed tens of thousands of Irish people over the centuries as they left the homeland to work in the mines, mills, construction companies and hospitals.

Tommy said: “There is not a road, building or waterway that Irish people have not helped shape. Once it was outside with me doing heavy toil while women worked as well as raised families. Now they are professionals - doctors, teachers, executives.

“This county has always made us welcome and I believe we have paid that back with our hard work and support of the communities.”

President Connolly had earlier talked of the extent Irish migrants have shaped the UK: “Our two countries are inextricably linked on so many levels. For centuries, our history was one of coloniser and colonised with all of the complexity that entails,”

She said that the Irish process of “reclaiming our identity” could not have happened without the contribution of the Irish community in Britain who, she said, had sent £4.8 billion home to the State between 1940 and 1970.

“They contributed to the education of children, saved farms, helped keep communities alive and indeed are still very important”, she said, adding that the Government’s current strategy for the diaspora was “an acknowledgment of the value of our diaspora and what we owe you”.

She was gifted a copy of the centre's 50th anniversary book, Leeds Irish Centre, 50 Years in the Making.