THE Jersey Irish Society is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and co-chair Martina Wintour has compiled a new book preserving the stories of Irish people who made the island their home.
Wintour’s book, An Irish Jersey Journey, documents decades of Irish life on the island through interviews and stories.
“I always thought of securing the stories of the Irish who came to the island,” she said.
Born in Swinford, Co Mayo, Wintour moved to Jersey in 1977 after being transferred by Midland Bank.
The Jersey Irish Society itself was founded a year earlier, in 1976, and officially established on St Patrick’s Day.
“It wasn’t until the society got a clubhouse in the early 80s that it really came into itself as a place where people could gather,” she explained.
“The clubhouse was generously donated, and we were given a peppercorn rent by the constable of St Helier, Fred Clarke.”
The club quickly became the centre of Irish social life on the island.
At the height of Irish migration to Jersey during the 1970s and 1980s, the society hosted céilí dances, bacon and cabbage evenings, drama groups and sports events.
Pamela O’Neill, Orla McBreen, Martina Wintour, Lyndon Farnham (Photo by Jersey Irish Society)The local GAA scene was also heavily involved.
She remembered one particularly memorable sporting encounter when a Cork hurling team travelled over to face Jersey.
“They were very, very good,” she laughed. “They absolutely thrashed them.”
Wintour also spoke of her fellow co-chair Pamela O’Neill, who moved from Ireland in 1961 and later became Irish consul for the Channel Islands in 1985.
“She was great; she brought all sorts to the island; she did loads of different events,” Wintour said.
Among them was participation in the famous Jersey Battle of Flowers parade, where the Irish Society entered a float designed as an Irish cottage and won an award.
But the society faced challenges over time.
After the death of Fred Clarke, the clubhouse was sold, and the organisation gradually fell quiet.
“People seemed to scatter without a regular place to meet,” Wintour said. "There were no formal events for a number of years.”
The society was formally re-established in 2014 after Wintour and O’Neill began organising events again in 2010.
Today, it still has around 300 paying members, though Wintour spoke of how times have changed.
“In the 70s there were manual workers who came to Jersey to work on the farms and the roads, to work in building and trade and so on,” she said. “Of course, mixed in with all of them were the Irish nurses.”
Orla McBreen at the JIS St Patrick’s Festival Ball (Photo by Jersey Irish Society)She said the old clubhouse often served as much more than a place to relax and socialise.
“It also helped people find jobs and accommodation. It really was a lifeline to those moving over,” she said.
While many Irish families returned home during the 1980s and 1990s, today’s arrivals are often young professionals who work in banking.
The society’s 50th anniversary celebrations began on St Brigid’s Day earlier this year, with members making traditional St Brigid’s crosses using rushes sent specially from Ireland.
An anniversary ball followed on St Patrick’s Day at the Royal Yacht Hotel in St Helier, attended by many notables, including Jersey Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham, Irish in Britain CEO Brian Dalton and the London embassy representative Orla McBreen.
But Wintour believes one of the most important achievements of the anniversary year is the preservation of personal histories through her book.
Over four years, she interviewed 30 people connected to Jersey’s Irish community, including 2nd, 3rd and even 5th-generation Irish islanders.
“My very first interview was with a gentleman whose parents came to the island in the 1930s to work on a farm,” she said. “He was in his early 90s then.”
The importance of recording those voices became clearer after some interviewees later passed away.
“Two of the people have since died, and their families are very interested and very grateful that their stories have been recorded,” she said.
For Wintour, many of those interviewed shared a common feeling about Jersey itself.
“It’s very green and has the agriculture and the farms and the sea and the beaches. Also, the people were very friendly.”
“Almost everyone I interviewed said exactly the same thing,” she said.
“They said it reminded them of Ireland."
All proceeds from An Irish Jersey Journey will go directly back into supporting the Jersey Irish Society and its future activities.
You can find them and the book: here
Martina Wintour at the book launch for An Irish Jersey Journey (Photo by Jersey Irish Society)Everything from irishpost.com and the print edition is available on the Irish Post App — plus more! Download it for Android or Apple IOS devices today
