ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a hidden history of Sikh immigrants and their descendants in the North and South of Ireland. Much of the material derives from oral history interviews, family photographs, documentary photographs, portraits, and other documents that we collected and took in the course of the project. Sikh migration to Northern Ireland dates from the early 1930s and it is closely connected to Sikh migration to mainland Britain. The first Sikh to come into Northern Ireland was Ujagar Singh, who was from Pandori Mattoo village in the Jalandhar district of the Doaba region in the Punjab. Migrant Sikhs and other Indians who were already working as peddlers found that the traditional male Sikh appearance with turban and beard was not welcomed in this part of the diaspora, so they often advised incoming Sikhs to cut their hair and remove their turbans to remove these obstacles to earning a livelihood.
