The Men Who Built Britain - the Navvies

This page reproduces content from the presentation run during the International Congress

See http://www.oocities.org/ultancowley/

More Navvy links at http://www.oocities.org/the_navvies/

Irish potato diggers, Scotland, 1910

This material is drawn from
"The Men Who Built Britain: a History of the Irish navvy"
by Ultan Cowley

http://www.oocities.org/ultancowley/

and the McAlpine archive

It was… generally assumed that Irish labour was indispensable to the prosperity of both the manufactures and the agriculture of Great Britain…'   Arthur Redford, English historian who in the 1920s was the first to study seasonal labour migration

Irish Harvesters, Yorkshire, 1920s

Since the late eighteenth century the Irish have played a major part in the expansion of British industry and of the country’s canal, road and rail network

The success of the British construction industry owes a great deal to Irish skills in excavation and construction, and their contribution to the development of the industry has been immeasurable

Sir William McAlpine

Road maintenance, 1920s

If you were diggin' out a road, you'd mark off every thirty-five yards with a piece of chalk, and tell a new man: "If you can't finish that before this evenin', don't come in tomorrow"
former subbie

'You get paid for the shit you shift'

Trenching, M1 Motorway, 1963

The commercial canal system, laid out in the British Isles in the eighteenth century, was officially known as the `Inland Navigation System'.
The diggers of these canals became known colloquially as ‘Navigators'. This was later abbreviated to ‘Navvies'
These canals were constructed mainly between 1745 and 1830, by which time there were almost 4,000 miles of navigable waterways throughout the British Isles

‘At home (Ireland ) from the 1920s to the 1960s it was the English pound note, or the  American dollar, that kept you alive – you had nothing else'   John Neary, Navvy, London 1998

Pulling cable, London 1950

'Irish national Education Budget in 1960 – £16 million;
Emigrants' Remittances in 1960 – £15.5million
'Emigrants' Remittances from Great Britain, 1939 to 1969 - £2.5 billion
Source: Central Statistics Office (Irl.)

Before I ever left home I knew all you had to do was go to Camden Town and you’d get work: just pick a colour –RSK was brown, Murphy green or grey, Lowry was blue, Pincher Mac was green

Promoting Mechanisation, 1950s

Reversing the flow: the consequences of Irish economic growth

Navvy's Grave, Kinlochleven, Scotland
inscription reads 'Not Known 26/6/06'