My friend Mike Nolan, who has died aged 86, was one of the founding members of the Bristol Irish Society when it was created in 1989.
The society brought together various existing Irish associations around the city, and Mike was its first treasurer as it began to organise annual cultural festivals, Irish language classes, dance sessions, stalls selling books and music, and lectures on Irish culture and history.
He was also chair of BIS when, one autumn evening in 1993, two men, one of whom was a member of an Orange Lodge, burst into the society’s dockside headquarters brandishing pickaxe handles. In a frenzied sectarian attack, they beat him badly. Mike was seriously injured and his assailants both received long prison sentences. Afterwards he was strong in his condemnation of sectarianism and stressed the society’s non-political, non-religious outlook. “To me the answer to bigotry is dialogue,” he said.
The son of Ivy (nee Reed) and Cyril Nolan, Mike was born in the Indian capital of Delhi and brought up in Lucknow, where his father was an inspector on the railways. The family had its roots in Ireland, and when India gained its independence, the Nolans moved to Cork, where Mike attended Christ the King (Coláiste Chríost Rí) school.
While apprenticed to the Irish Electricity Board he worked at the local Morrogh’s Woollen Mill, where he would wink through the window at Mary Donovan as she inspected bales of material for imperfections. Mike was soon escorting Mary to dances at the rowing club in Blackrock.
Having qualified as an electrician, Mike moved to London to pursue work opportunities and started evening classes to become a draughtsman, which led him to be employed in the Cricklewood drawing office of the aircraft manufacturers Handley Page. When Mary joined him in 1961 they married and settled in Kingsbury, north-west London, an area with a large Irish population.
A transfer to John Laing Construction took Mike and Mary to Frenchay in north Bristol, and over the ensuing years Mike worked for various other companies, including Vic Lawson Associates and Mercury Communications, while Mary took posts in the NHS and became a seamstress in a local hospital. With their four children they moved in 1986 to the Fishponds area of Bristol, where Mike became one of the founding members of the BIS.
He remained active in the society for many years, and deposited its files with the Bristol Archives in 2023. He also supported the society’s successor organisation We Irish, which continues to organise cultural events in the Bristol region.
Having retired from Cable and Wireless as a senior building services engineer in 2000, Mike was able to spend more time cultivating his garden and the fruit and vegetables of which he was so proud.
He is survived by Mary, their four children, Kevin, Paul, David and Susan, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
