From Dromahair Fair Day to Spotify

A podcast of stories called ‘Leitrim to Birmingham’ brings to life the road well travelled by Leitrim men and women to England in search of work.

Dromahair's Tony Downey compiled the stories during the lockdown in England. He admits he didn't have much DIY skills and so turned to writing and reminiscing.

Tony Downey

Tony is a retired head teacher who left Dromahair in 1973 in search of work and adventure. He taught in London, Birmingham and Burton.

As a teacher Tony said he loved to tell his students stories, only when he retired did he start to play Irish music and attend sessions and listen to the stories of others and their journey from Ireland to England.

Tony taught Irish studies in Birmingham and was also an active member of the Irish Community Forum, which he said has a massive Leitrim involvement.

Tony frequently returns to Dromahair and continues to enjoy seeing the changes in his homeplace. He said Dromahair is a very different place now than when he left, “it is just ten minutes from a University and it has pharmaceutical jobs on it's doorstep.”

Tony first wrote the stories for Music Magazine but he was encouraged to record his stories and did so in June this year.

“The stories were really for my grandchildren to introduce them to Leitrim,” he says.

Tony has seven grandchildren that he dotes on but past students, family and friends were also interested in the stories so he released them onto Spotify.

Half the stories look at North Leitrim of the 50s, 60s and early 70s, the rest are about Birmingham - some reaching as far as Burton. The stories are about emigration, settling and playing music.

They range from Irish dancing to refugees to hurling and back again to the stories told around the kitchen table as a child, or the fair day or the American wake.

Tony says the subtext is to tell the “Leitrim story” a county often overlooked, but it also celebrates the people who emigrated, who worked hard as well as a new generation of Irish heritage in the UK. Tony is working on adding more stories to the playlist and hopes they will be enjoyed.

He said Spotify might seem daunting to those of a vintage, but it opens up a new world- just ask someone to download it for you!