Return from Australia: ‘I went back to O’Connell Street. Nelson’s Pillar is gone’

When Willy “Bill” Lambe set sail for the six-week emigration journey to Australia with his wife Carmel back 1959, they never thought they’d see Ireland again. But this week Willy (89) was back in his native Dublin for the first time in 63 years.

He flew in from Sydney last Friday, when a video of him embracing his brother, Tony “Da” Lambe, at the arrivals hall in Dublin Airport went viral. As feelgood moments go, it was powerful. Sadly, Carmel never made it back. She died in early May when they were still planning the trip, which she had been looking forward to.

They were newly weds, and Willy aged 27, when they availed of the so-called 10 pound-Pom offer to emigrate. It was an “assisted passage migration scheme” created by the Australian authorities after the second World War to boost their population and workforce. The Lambes bought their tickets and made the journey to Southampton, from where they set sail for their new lives in Australia.

“The trip over was lovely, we were hoping it would never end,” says Willy. “Friends of my wife’s were on the boat. They had seven kids, seven girls and they were going to Adelaide. There was a [best-dressed] competition on the boat so Carmel – because she was a seamstress – made them all dresses in green, white and gold. And they won first prize. She was great at anything like that.”

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They sailed via Malta, Egypt and then through the Suez Canal and on to the Colony of Aden, today part of Yemen. From there they crossed the Arabian Sea and to Colombo in what was formerly the British colony of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. Then they sailed below the equator and towards Australia. They disembarked in Sydney Harbour to their new lives just as construction on the Sydney Opera House was starting.

Willy says the slick advertising campaigns – including short promotional films – run by the Australian authorities in their efforts to entice new emigrants to “The Lucky Country” promised a land of prosperity. It was a world away from poverty-stricken Dublin.

“They said everyone in Australia had their own houses, their own cars and there were lots of jobs, that sort of thing.”

Rougher conditions

But they found rougher conditions than anticipated in a city that felt like it was still under construction. They rented a house in Bondi Junction, Sydney before buying their own place in the same beachside suburb. Having qualified as a fitter back in Dublin after leaving school at 12, Willy found work with an aviation parts company near Sydney Airport.

“We wrote home the whole time and people wrote back. But it took a while to get a letter back; Jesus it took weeks,” he said. “I never got homesick but the missus did. She’d say things like ‘if I was at home now, I’d be at so and so’s wedding’. But when the kids come along, then we had our lives there.”

While the children – John, Paul, Sue and Mark – kept them busy, Willy maintained one of his big passions from his life back in Ireland, handball.

“I used to play as a kid in Green Street. I was in a few clubs – St Michan’s, Sean McDermott’s and then the Garda club. I won a Leinster title, I was about 16 or 17 at the time. I also played in Croke Park.” He swapped those Irish venues and his old rivals in Dublin for new ones in Sydney. “I played against the Americans when I represented New South Wales and we beat them, the Yanks.”

While he and Carmel never returned to Ireland as a couple, they were visited by family members from Ireland. Tony went out to Australia in the early 1980s with an Irish schools team of Gaelic football players to play compromised rules against an Australian selection.

In between games, the players – including future soccer international Niall Quinn – were too young to get served in most of the pubs in Sydney so they decamped several times to Willy’s house for a session. “There was bodies everywhere,” Willy confirms with a laugh.

He says the expense involved in visiting Ireland was simply too much in the early years. Then, once he and Carmel started their family and bought their house, new financial pressures began.

Terraced house

But when his daughter suggested earlier this year it was time to go to Ireland, Willy didn’t hesitate.

He has already visited the Church Avenue terraced house where he grew up with his eight siblings – Eddie, Noel, Tony, Francie, Claire, Rita, Brendan and Anne – and his parents, John and Peg.

He also went for a tour of Croke Park and on Monday – his 90th birthday – he’s been invited to the Australian embassy for lunch with the ambassador, Gary Gray, who emigrated with his family from Yorkshire in the 1960s under the same scheme as Willy and Carmel.

Ambassador Gray told The Irish Times he was looking forward to meeting Willy and speaking about their shared experience.

“My mum and my dad were indentured labour to an Australian steel manufacturing and mining company, BHP, and we three kids were free. And we left Southampton in 1966,” he said of sailing to the final destination of Adelaide. Once families went from Britain or Ireland there was no sense they would ever return, he added. “This wasn’t a working holiday visa and my dad never returned to Yorkshire.”

Changed city

On Saturday night, the Lambe family will gather in St Vincent’s GAA Club in Marino, where his brother Tony and his family are well-known. And some of Carmel’s family are coming too. Willy says it’s been easy to pick up with family he hasn’t seen for so long. “You just catch on straight away.”

His brother Tony agrees. “It’s been absolutely fantastic to see him, wonderful. They call him Bill in Australia. But he said he knew he was home when I called him Willy.”

After over six decades away, he marvels at how Dublin has transformed.

“I went back to O’Connell Street, had a walk around there. The place had changed so much. First of all, Nelson’s Pillar is gone. The ice cream parlours, the cinemas; they’re gone too.”

He also says the city seems more international compared to the exclusively white Irish country he left. “You can’t beat Ireland. I’m going to go around and visit a few places. I don’t think I’ll see any of the people I played handball with. But I’ll go to see my mother’s grave. I’m so glad to see the place, to see what’s going on. It’s so much better than when I left.”