Helping emigrants to holiday back home

About 35 years ago, Mr Michael Cronin left his native Killorglin, Co Kerry, to find work in London. He is back in Ireland this week for the first time since.

He doesn't know exactly how long he's been gone. "I don't bother keeping a diary. It's different for you people writing for a newspaper. I wouldn't be quite sure what I was doing yesterday." He insists he is not exaggerating, but Mr Cronin clearly likes to joke and you never quite know when he is pulling your leg.

It is Monday night at The Bay pub in Rosslare Strand, Co Wexford, and Mr Cronin is present with a number of friends from London's Irish community. They are part of a 26-strong group in Rosslare for a week's holiday.

Most of the 22 men and four women, accompanied by eight support staff, emigrated during the 1950s and 1960s and some, like Mr Cronin, have been away for several decades. Their return has been organised by the Aisling Project which was jointly started in 1994 by the Irish Centre in London and the Arlington House hostel in Camden Town.

The hostel is believed to be the largest in Europe for homeless people and has 400 residents, about a third of whom are Irish.

Mr Cronin, who lives in another hostel in Willesden, north-west London, "didn't have a clue" what to expect on his return. "It's been a hell of a long time. Things have changed, people have changed. But it's been all right up to now."

When he first moved to London, he didn't return home because so many of his brothers had also emigrated there that his mother came for regular visits. "Once you got to meet the mom you didn't need to go and that was part of the reason I never bothered."

He believes he has a younger brother still living in Killorglin but he has lost touch and is unsure about returning to his home town. "I don't know, sure I'd be bloody lost."

"We want people to feel free to get in touch with their family and friends if they want to, but if but if not they can have a holiday, just like everybody else," says Mr Alex McDonnell, a staff member at Arlington House and one of the organisers of the Aisling Project, which arranges at least one trip such as this every year.

Mr Gerry Griffin, another member of the Rosslare party, is a resident of Arlington House. Born in Tralee, Co Kerry, he grew up on Valentia Island where he played on under-age football teams trained by the legendary Mick O'Connell. He got seven honours in his Leaving Cert in 1967 and qualified as a primary school teacher from St Patrick's College in Drumcondra.

He taught in a number of schools and his prospects were good until, as he frankly puts it, "drink got the better of me." It caused the break-up of his relationship with his girlfriend and he emigrated to London, where he became homeless and, out of "pure shame", lost contact with his family. "I was out of touch with them for 15 years and they didn't know where I was."

He is now in a stable relationship and is back in contact with his family. Mr Griffin's story is far from unique. The chairman of the Aisling Project, Mr Joe McGarry, went to London 30 years ago and for years endured the life of hard physical labour, homelessness and alcoholism that was the lot of many Irish emigrants.

"I was a fish out of water, from rural Co Antrim, stuck in a major city. We went to work when we were homeless with muck on our heads after sleeping rough overnight. If you wanted a room you had to pay a month in advance and a month's deposit, but we were hired by the day and paid by the day to work on the buildings.

"If you're paid daily you can't afford a room so you turn to hostels, but some of the hostels were horrific, with 40 in dormitories, and you were actually safer finding an old derelict building. If you're sleeping in a derelict building what are you going to do from six o'clock to 11 o'clock at night? There was heat in a pub, there was light in a pub, you could a read a paper, there were people to talk to."

Mr McGarry managed to escape the trap but others weren't so lucky. "Most of my peers are dead. The only reason I'm alive is because I'm sober." He knows the Aisling Project from both sides, having travelled as a group member on one of the first holidays organised. The trip helped to inspire him to turn his life around.

Much of the fundraising for the project is done by Irish comedians in Britain since Ardal O'Hanlon accepted Mr McGarry's invitation to become patron of the fund about four years ago. Irish Government funding has also been made available to assist emigrants who wish to return to Ireland to live.