We are working through first teaching of the 'Windrush Child' book, based on Benjamin Zephaniah's own family history and the experiences of the Windrush Generation.
The Spotify playlist has been growing, as we have moved through a few different periods of the book, and music is referenced.
It can be seen (and listened to) here.
In the middle section of the book, Leonard's family move to share a house with a family called the Barry's.
They are from Ireland and we are told that they also moved to England for "a better life" and more options.
The Irish diaspora has taken many different forms over the years and occurred for various reasons historically.
There was large scale emigration during the 1940s and 1950s.
This University College Cork website refers to the 1950s in Ireland as being described as a period of "doom and gloom" or "the lost decade".
Agriculture, the traditional mainstay of the Irish economy, continued to decline throughout the 1950s. The state dedicated insufficient effort to developing new industries to fill the gap created by the demise of, in particular, of the small farm rural economy. As a consequence, little work was available for thousands of young people coming of age. Unemployment remained high throughout and it was estimated that from 1949 to 1956, real national income rose by only 8 per cent, at a time when the average increase in European equated to approximately 40 per cent.