Lovers and Strangers: An Immigrant History of Post-War Britain
Clair Wills in conversation with Elaine Sisson
The battered and exhausted Britain of 1945 was desperate for workers - to rebuild, to fill the factories, to make the new NHS work. From all over the world, thousands of individuals - including many Irish emigrants - took the plunge. Most assumed they would spend just three or four years in the UK, sending much of their pay back home, but instead large numbers stayed and transformed the country.
Clair Wills teaches at Princeton University in the USA. Her books include Dublin 1916: The Siege of the GPO and The Best Are Leaving: Emigration and Post-War Irish Culture.
Elaine Sisson is a cultural historian, writer and lecturer at Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology.
Recorded at The Printworks at Dublin Castle on 1 October 2017.