PRESIDENT Michael D Higgins’ sojourn as President of Ireland comes to an end in November 2025.
It is thought that he will make at least one visit to the diaspora in Britain before he hangs up his presidential hat and returns to writing poetry.
Whether he’ll meet the King seems highly likely — the two men are known to like and respect each other, and of course he has met the King when he was just lowly Prince Charles, on one of his visits to Ireland.
It’s almost like the verse from a well known song, written more than a hundred years ago:
I've seen England's king from the top of a bus
And I've never known him, but he means to know us.
And tho' by the Saxon we once were oppressed,
Still I cheered, God forgive me, I cheered with the rest.
And now that he's visited Erin's green shore
We'll be much better friends than we've been heretofore
When we've got all we want, we're as quiet as can be
Where the mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.
That was one of Percy French’s best-known works, and not one of President Higgins’ party pieces.
Should President Michael Higgins be granted an official tour round London, the King will undoubtedly have some grade-A bon mots as he points out the sights.
“Michael,” he might say, “over there on the right — that’s Tyburn. That’s where one of my ancestors had St Oliver Plunkett hung, drawn and quartered. . . . oh, and that statue over there: that’s Dublin man the Duke of Wellington. Only Dub we’ve every had as prime minister. Up the Jacks, eh!?”
King Charles could well take President Higgins up to Golder’s Green cemetery so they can both pay their respects to Dublin man Bram Stoker, and they may have Camilla on standby to do Dracula impressions. Perhaps jumping from behind a tombstone for maximum effect.
In truth, throughout London — in its cemeteries, its statues, its great buildings, its transport system and in its pubs, clubs and restaurants — you don’t need to look very hard to find an Irish influence.
The top London Irish things President Higgins might consider doing include the following
Visit a working class hero
ABNEY Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington is the last resting place of James Bronterre O’Brien, a Longford man who died exactly 160 years ago in 1864. O’Brien was one of the leaders of the Chartists — along with Feargus O’Connor — one of the earliest working class movements in the world. President Higgins will be interested to hear that he also fought tirelessly for the freedom of the press, something, as we all know, underpins a true democracy. Go you journalists!
If President Higgins has time, he might visit the grave of George Leybourne, his big number was Champagne Charlie. He was one of the great performers and writers of the music hall era.
On a more melancholy note, the President could also put the grave of William Calcroft on his itinerary. Calcroft was the public hangman in the 19th century, one of the most prolific executioners England has ever had. What a miserable boast to have.
Calcroft was responsible for sending the Manchester Martyrs, of God Save Ireland fame, to their doom. He was reported to have been particularly pleased to have despatched Fermanagh man Michael Barrett to an early grave. Michael, a Fenian deemed to have been responsible for the Clerkenwell bomb, was the last person to be publicly hanged in Britain or Ireland — an act that might well have been responsible for, or at least helped along, the practice of labelling Irish people with the derogatory term ‘Mick’.
On a more uplifting note, Abney Park is the last resting place of several slavery abolitionists.
The cemetery is also a remarkable natural haven, blending Victorian gothic charm with an incredible wildlife cast of characters and a flourishing ecosystems.
Established in 1840, it was one of the first European cemeteries designed as an arboretum, and features London plane, cedar, yew, and oak. These towering giants are home to a variety of birds — woodpeckers, robins, wrens, and goldfinches. It’s also home to several bat species, including common pipistrelles and noctules. These bats thrive in the cemetery's relative quiet and abundance of insects. Evening bat walks are organised by the cemetery people. Ask at the gate or go to the website https://abneypark.org/
The people there are helpful ABCD (Above and Beyond the Call of Duty) and will tell you about all the upcoming events, tours, walks.
Go to a session
AH THE Irish seisún! As President Higgins may tell Charles, the traditional music session stretches back in an unbroken line to the ancient Celts and the very mists of pre-history. The first settlers in Ireland nine thousand years ago arrived on the north coast carrying bodhráns and singing It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, Michael may well tell Charles.
Er, not so fast, Mr President. Even Charles won’t swallow that.
Contrary to popular belief the pub session, now faux-aged to ‘seisún’, is no more than eighty, maybe ninety years or so old, with London immigrant life playing the major part in the exercise.
The traditional music session was a spontaneous response to alienation in a strange country. During the 1940s dance halls became more and more showband-orientated, and the céilí bands (drums, accordion, piano) virtually disbanded in the face of this opposition from a more popular dancing form.
Thus the immigrants were now deprived of an important connection with home. Most of them were labourers living in digs or rooming houses, thus sessions in front of the fire were not an option. So they set up shop in local pubs in London - the first time Irish music was ever played in such establishments, and the first time that musicians from different counties playing different instruments (accordion, fiddle, tenor banjo etc) sat down and played together.
Whatever its genesis, Irish traditional music is one of the most instantly recognisable music forms anywhere, and the pubs are still going strong. It is almost one of the very best. If you disagree with that, fair enough. But you’re wrong.
Michael D could take Charles to any one of these (and being a poet, will probably be asked to get up and give a recitation).
The redoubtable Karen Ryan of the London Lasses keeps tabs on all sessions, concerts, festivals and gigs on www.karenryan.net or www.irishmusicinlondon.org
Delve into the Underground
THE London Transport Museum in Covent Garden explores the history of London’s transport system, the stories of the people who have travelled and worked in the city over the last 200 years, and the workers who built the system.
Naturally, the museum also goes into the Underground and its construction 150 years ago. We’ll never know how many Irishmen helped build the world’s first subterranean train, as the employment records, sadly, weren’t kept. But anecdotally we know that it was plenty.
The Museum's collections include original artworks and posters — as well as the story of possibly the world’s greatest map: Harry Beck’s London Underground map — diagrammatic and not topographical — has since copied and adapted in almost every country in the world with a transport system.
It is, in short, a work of art. There’s even a play about him running until January 5 www.ltmuseum.co.uk/theatre
Go to the Library
THE British Library on Euston Road is one of the world’s great libraries. In fact, it is the resting place of so much information that it’s reckoned that if the whole rest of the world was destroyed, but somehow the Euston Road was spared, the whole of what we fondly call civilisation could start up again — with the data contained on the shelves of the British Library.
This establishment is a legal deposit library, meaning it receives copies of all books produced in the UK and Ireland (in case you’re worried that this seems a bit unfair, Trinity College Dublin is also a legal deposit library and receives a similar remit).
The Irish content within the British Library’s 14 million books, is therefore substantial. If, for instance, you enter the words James Joyce in the search engine, over 4,000 publications about, or by, him appear.
Aside from books, ancient Irish maps, annals, even GAA programmes from match days, are available to view.
Just a word of warning: hopefully President Higgins won’t just arrive will- nilly at the library door. While it is open to the general public, and is free, you need a relatively plausible reason for wanting to browse their collections. But in practice any research project will do (just say you’re investigating turnip growing in Termonfeckin in the 16th century and you’ll be fine).
Stop into a church
BEING a poet, Michael D. Higgins will want to pay his respects to fellow literary man, Oliver Goldsmith. His memorial stands in the Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster — or Westminster Abbey as it likes to call itself when it’s just hanging out.
Goldsmith’s memorial reads: "To the memory of Oliver Goldsmith, poet, philosopher and historian, by whom scarcely any style of writing was left untouched and no one touched unadorned, whether to move to laughter or tears; a powerful, yet lenient master of the affections, in genius sublime, vivid, and versatile, in expression, noble, brilliant, and delicate, is cherished in this monument by the love of his companions, the fidelity of his friends, and the admiration of his readers. Born in the parish of Fernes, in Longford, a county of Ireland, at a place named Pallas, on the 29th November 1731. He was educated at Dublin and died in London on 4th April 1774.”
Although the memorial stands proudly in the abbey, the remains of Oliver Goldsmith himself lie in Fleet Street. He certainly should have been buried in Westminster Abbey, but his body was re-located to Temple Church after it was found that he died owing £2000. It may have been Brendan Behan who said that the last cheque you write should be for the undertaker — and it should bounce; but it was Oliver Goldsmith who put it into practice.
After duly considering the astonishing literary career of Goldsmith — he is reckoned to have written the best play, poem and novel in the English language — the President will want to hurry on his way past that other Oliver, name of Cromwell, past somebody called Shakespeare, and perhaps pause at the memorial to the Brontë sisters, paying attention to their Co. Down connections. He will then find himself in the west cloister of Westminster Abbey, and in front of a white marble monument and bust erected in the 1750s to the memory of Arthur O’Keeffe. The inscription reads:
“Near this place lies the Body of ARTHUR O’KEEFFE Esqr. Lineally descended from the KINGS OF IRELAND. . . Reward of a Virtuous and well spent Life Died the 26th of September 1756.”
We know very little about Arthur, although he was obviously of some importance to get a berth in the abbey. But if he really was descended from the ancient Irish kings, certainly our president will want to investigate. He might even write a poem about it.
Pop into a museum
The British Museum was largely the work of a Co. Down man, Hans Sloane — there’s a statue to him near the harbour in Killyeagh. Since the library’s foundation in 1753 the British Museum has preserved — many would argue plundered — priceless artefacts from around the world. Today it houses more than 8 million pieces of swag. Needless to say Ireland was one of the sources of booty, and the President is likely to be shown several intriguing Irish pieces if he manages to give King Charles the slip and make his way to Great Russell Street. These range from a 11th-13th century AD Sheela-na-Gig from Chloran in Co. Meath to the 7th-9th century AD St Conall Cael’s bell. The latter was nicked from Donegal sometime in the 19th century. The bell remained on the Inishkeel island in County Donegal, built to contain a 6th century bell associated with Conall Cael. It was revered and celebrated on the saint’s feast day until an English chap came along and said, “I say, that would look rather better on my estate in Sussex.”
It has been in the British since the 19th century.
The museum also houses the 7th or 8th century AD St Cuileán’s bell shrine. One intriguing exhibit is the late 9th-11th century AD Kells crosier which, according to the museum “was found without explanation in a solicitor's office in 1850, and was owned by Cardinal Wiseman before purchase by The British Museum in 1859”. One imagines it may have a story or two to tell.
Face the music in Camden Town
The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at the Cecil Sharp House is England’s national folk music and dance archive. The library contains books, pamphlets, periodicals, press cuttings, broadsides, paintings, photographs, slides, artefacts, records, reel-to-reel tapes, phonograph cylinders, videos, cine films, compact discs, and audiocassettes — and a fair percentage of that is Irish. Given that this is the HQ of the English
Folk Song and Dance Society, it shows the significance of Irish traditional music throughout Europe.
The library also contains a truly priceless archive of traditional Irish music in the form of Reg Hall’s very authoritative Ph.D. thesis on Irish Traditional Music in London. This is an invaluable, and amazingly thought-provoking body of work which basically traces the rise of the traditional session, not to Clare or Sligo or Dublin, but the pubs of Fulham, Kilburn and Holloway Road. It’s free to view, and readily available.
The Cecil Sharp House also administers copyright on behalf of a handful of Irish artists, including the McPeake Family. The President will more than likely ask to see one of the original manuscripts of their Wild Mountain Thyme.
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