The migration to Britain by Irish people over the past 200 years will form part of a major National Archives interactive website looking at migration to Britain using more than 150,000 digitised sources from 30 museums across the UK.
The ‘Moving Here’ website, which can be accessed at www.movinghere.org.uk, looks at the last 200 years of Irish, Caribbean, Jewish and Asian migration to the UK and will enable surfers to get guidance on tracing their family history, send images as e-postcards and contribute their own stories of migration to the website.
Out of the 150,000 digitised sources from 30 UK museums, the site will feature various rarities from the variety of Irish, Indian, Jewish and other immigrants that made the journey.
One such example is a copy of playwright Brendan Behan’s correspondence to the British Home Secretary requesting permission to return to England following his IRA conviction.
Alison Taylor of the Luton Museum Service said: “Through ‘Moving Here’ we gained important new information on the history of the Luton Irish community, and the community has gained greater recognition for its contribution to the town.”
By John Kennedy
