Happy St Patrick’s Day 2019 Wednesfield and Wolverhampton!
#HappyStPatrick’sDay Back in 2006 we resurrected St Patrick’s Day in Wolverhampton, and we had a marvellous morning with our Irish Community in the Mayors Parlour. My thoughts at that time was that it was right that we remember the contribution of those early communities in the development of this great and historic City!
The Irish community itself started to arrive in the then Town in the at the end of the 18th century. The Town ( According to Author Chris Upton) was making a name for itself at that time by plentiful engineering work, developing canals and the unskilled work on offer.
One of the draws was that there was already a sizeable population of Catholics in the Town.
The Irish community at that time were driven by the potato famine in Ireland in the 1840’s and they clustered in the town centre around Stafford street and Caribee Island. In 1851 there were 6,000 Irish people here in the Town.
Those families and their descendents are still here in numbers. They have made a wonderful contribution to Wolverhampton, and today in 2019. I wish them all a very Happy St Patrick’s Day!
