Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Ser. : 1945-1980

The Irish music and dance scene in London before the war belonged to the London-Irish, a community largely working class and exclusively catholic established in the East End and south-east London in the decades succeeding the Famine. By 1945, as a consequence of the Blitz and a general decline in the fortunes of the Gaelic revival, its energy level was running down. The scene after the war, however, was dominated by a new wave of immigration of young, single, working men and women largely from the rural west of Ireland - the Irish in London. While they accepted some elements of the infrastructure established by the London-Irish, their community was so vibrant it developed its own values and practices, constantly being refreshed from home and adapting to new affluent conditions in the inner city.