I am standing on the beach at West Kirby near Liverpool and looking out across the Irish

sea.

That great carriageway which brought to Britain Irish traders, invaders, and proselytizing

monks trying to convert the Britons to Christianity.

As an early Gaelic poem put it, go past us eastward towards the sun tree into the broad

lunged distance sea when the wind sets from the south across the land of Saxons of

mighty shields.

Here on the shores of this lunged distance sea is a good place to start the story of

how the Irish shaped Britain.

Well, I think the history of the Irish in Britain is a history of successful integration.

I do think that the impact of the Irish on British life obviously in cultural forms,

obviously in various forms of radical and labor politics has been both immense and I would

obviously argue for the good.

It is the story of the most complex relationship from the vanished tribes of the ancient Celtic

world to the so-called Ryanair generation commuting between the cities of Ireland and

Britain.

I am Furgle Keen and this is how the Irish shaped Britain on the BBC World Service.

The Irish built most of Scotland, they built the reservoirs, the ports, many of the city

skates and not least of course the railways.

I think the Irish shaped Britain with their genius, ingenuity, their literary flair and

inventiveness and by their complexity.

We do more stories, we tell long stories and we do long spills and we get one idea and

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