From Irish Fields to London Tunnels

And the Story of the Tunnel Tigers

As a boy growing up on a small farm in County Cavan, Michael McGovern never imagined that his life would take him deep beneath the streets of London. But like thousands of young Irish emigrants, he left home in the 1950s with little more than a cardboard suitcase and hope for something better. In London, Michael became one of the Tunnel Tigers — the fearless Irish labourers whose back-breaking work built the city’s underground tunnels. Facing danger, hardship and exile, he forged a new life while raising a young family in England. Years later, with his wife and children, he returned to Ireland, settling on a sixty-seven-acre farm in County Leitrim, bringing the story full circle.

This is both a deeply personal memoir and a tribute to a generation of Irish men and women whose courage, sacrifice, and determination shaped modern Britain and who, when the time was right, came home to Ireland.