My father was an immigrant

 As it's quite fashionable to talk about immigrants in some circles, I thought it worth mentioning that my own father was one, and fulfilled many of the requirements that people use to categorise such incomers nowadays. For a start, he arrived on a boat bringing with him his own language, religion and food traditions..

But as those last three were

• A smattering of his granny's fluent Gaelic
• Roman Catholicism 
• Bacon and cabbage

He didn't really stand out that much if he kept his mouth shut. It can be much harder if you don't 'fit in' visually, especially for your own children who, like me, are not immigrants at all.

Now this is not to say that arriving in England in the 30s or 40 from Ireland was a piece of cake. Even though there was a huge demand for Irish labourers, nurses and- earlier -servants, there were still signs saying 'No dogs, no blacks, no Irish' (or variations of that) in some boarding houses. The reputation of the Irish as hard workers but hard drinkers and rackety at times had been established by the mid nineteenth century when large numbers of them came over to build the railways (and much else).

But now, being white Irish background with no Irish accent is basically a piece of cake in England. You can choose to tell people, but you can fit in anonymously if you choose.

It's interesting to me that we have such a different set of words that we use for people who go to another country to live, depending on who they are, how much money they have and - let's be honest - often the colour of their skins. Here are a few I can think of:

Migrant, immigrant, emigrant, expat, settler, pioneer, incomer.

I suppose you choose your name from your own viewpoint and your value attached to it. I'm very happy to be an immigrant's boy.