I know what you mean about North London, Bonnie. Before I moved up north I was an inspector for the Contributions Agency in that part of town. It had changed even from the early 90s, when the band I was in (Ti-Fer) used to play in the Black Lion (which was another great Irish-run music venue on Kilburn High Road). Mind you, in the mid-late 80s a lot of the action on the music front moved to the West London area. At that time a lot of young Irish people arrived in London - unlike the earlier generation who came on the boat and train into Euston most of them flew into Heathrow and a lot of them settled around Hounslow, Brentford, Southall, Ealing and so on. There were also a lot of young Irish student teachers at colleges like Maria Grey in Isleworth and St Mary's in Twickenham. Some great musicians amongst them like Teresa Heanue and Brendan Ring. After a while, though, a lot of them like Donna Harkin (great button box player and highly respected teacher from Donegal) and Roisin Harrigan a wonderful fiddle player - you'll probably know them) went home.

Brentford's still pretty lively, I'm told.