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Monday, July 27th, 2009
There will be about 180 business leaders and high achievers in culture and sport attending Ireland’s first Global Economic Forum in Dublin’s Farmleigh House in September, according to the Sunday Business Post.
Taoiseach Brian Cowan and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin will host the event, which will also be attended by all government departments and ministers. Minister Martin said a high rate of of acceptances had been received from members of the diaspora in the US, Britain, Australia, continental Europe, Asia, and the Gulf region. He described the event as “a national effort to reach out to the most successful and influential members of Ireland’s diaspora to facilitate their work and contribution to economic recovery”.
Martin told the newspaper that the event would harness the talents “of people who are conscious of worldwide trends in business and technology”. He added, “The second key element is to find ways to network this global diaspora more effectively in the future in a way that will contribute to Ireland and also benefit the network.”
Topics under consideration for discussion include Ireland as an innovation island, the digital and life sciences and marketing “Brand Ireland”.
Related articles:
Saturday, July 25th, 2009
The Irish Diaspora conferences that took place in New York in 2007 and Dublin in 2008 will be followed up in 2009 with a London event. The John Hume Institute for Irish Studies has announced the preliminary schedule for “The Irish in Britain: A Conversation with the Diaspora”, which will be held at the Royal Society in London on Monday, 23 November, 2009.
Organisers say:
In 2007 we started a conversation with the Irish Diaspora with an event in New York. 1000 people came along and participated in a lively, informative and entertaining debate. Last year we brought the discussion to Dublin and this year we would like to continue that spirit of lively interaction with the Irish in Britain. This special event takes as its premise that lasting transformations within Ireland and of Irish Society, whether political, cultural, social or economic have been shaped and informed by the Irish abroad. This event is about exploring that proposition by looking at three significant issues in our relatively recent past and drawing on the strands arising from that exploration to inform and frame an open floor discussion on the Irish in Britain today and tomorrow.
One curious thing about the programme as it has been initially released is that there seems to be a lack of involvement of the Irish in Britain as speakers, but perhaps that will be rectified by the time the final lineup is announced.
Outline Programme
08:30 a.m. Registration
09:00 a.m. Welcome: Hugh Brady, President of UCD
09:15 a.m.
Session One: Towards 2016
This session takes as its theme the notion of the Irish abroad as the significant engine of political change. Contributions will look at the influence of the “Irish” cities of Britain and America on the formation of key figures involved in 1916 and the years that followed, the role of the Irish abroad in the formation and sustaining of a republican movement, the relationships between the new state and the Irish abroad and the consequences of the legacies of historic events and their commemoration for the present and future generations.
Participants will include Mary Daly, Diarmaid Ferriter, Michael Kennedy and Bob Schmuhl
10:30 a.m. Coffee
11:00 a.m.
Session Two: Joyc(e)ity
The theme of this session will be the Diaspora as creative impulse. In particular contributions will explore aspects of the Aesthetic of Exile, Joyce and the contribution of the Irish to “Modernism” and the phenomenon of a diaspora of cultural artefacts.
Participants will include Luca Crispi, Anne Fogarty, Declan Kiberd, and Frank McGuinness
12:30 a.m. Lunch
2:00 p.m.
Session Three: Ties That Bind
The session will explore cultural branding, identity and social cohesion in Britain and Ireland. It will take as a starting point two iconic identifiers of “Irishness”, the GAA and Guinness, both of whom celebrate milestone anniversaries in 2009
Participants will include Cormac O’Grada and Paul Rouse
3:00 p.m. Coffee
3:30 p.m.
Session Four: What does the future hold for Ireland and its Diaspora?
An open floor discussion will be led by a special guest panel.
5.00 p.m. Closing remarks: Hugh Brady
7:30 for 8:00 The Forum will be followed by a dinner and the presentation of The John Hume Medal
Related webpages:
Friday, July 24th, 2009
Friday, July 24th, 2009
There has been a wonderful trend in recent years of collecting emigrants’ oral histories. Many of those contributing their memories are elderly, and these books, films and websites are an invaluable record of the struggles and triumphs of ordinary people, many of whom have extraordinary stories. Know of any other oral history projects? Drop me a line or fill in the comment box…
Britain
Irish Oral History Archive – a reference archive and resource for the contemporary and historical spoken narratives of Irish people at home and abroad, especially as they relate to the story of emigration.
MovingHere.org.uk: Luton Irish Forum – a variety of individuals detail their moves to England
I Only Came Over For a Couple of Years… 2005 – Interviews with Irish elders in England who arrived between the 1930s and 1960s. (Half-hour documentary, £7 plus postage and packaging)
Irish Elders Now project
Dunne, Catherine. An Unconsidered People: The Irish in London. Dublin: New Island, 2003 – a book detailing the experience of older emigrants.
Canada
A story to be told: Personal Reflections on the Irish emigrant experience in Canada (book)
Memories of the Past: Reflections from Ottawa’s Irish Drop-In group – a collection of memories and recipes
United States
Archives of Irish America – Interviews with a range of notable people in the New York Irish community, discussing their life history and sense of identity.
When Mem’ry Brings Us Back Again – the stories of 35 people who moved to New York between 1927- 1964. Available as both book and DVD.
An Irish (American) Story (film, 1997) – The 96-year-old grandmother of the filmmaker recalls her emigration as a 17-year-old in 1911.
The Gathering: Collected Oral Histories of the Irish in Montana – Funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs, this project is based in the University of Montana.
Irish Dance in Arizona – Tracing the history of Irish dance in the American southwest since 1942.
Crossroads Irish Oral History Project Archives of the San Francisco Bay Area – Funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs, the project looks at the Irish and Irish-American communities of the San Francisco Bay area.
Molloy College – documenting the Irish of Long Island and the greater New York area.
University of Notre Dame – Director of Notre Dame’s Department of Anthropology Deb Rotman is working on a developing an online archive of Irish-American oral histories.
Australia
The National Library of Australia – has a number of Irish-related recordings in its oral history catalog.
New Zealand
National Library of New Zealand – has several oral history collections; contact them for Irish-related materials.
Global and Irish-based
GAA Oral History Project – recording what the GAA has meant to the Irish people, in their own words.
Breaking the Silence: Staying at home in an emigrant society – examines the impact of emigration on those who stayed through 78 oral narratives and 12 text contributions.
Returning to Ireland
Narratives of Migration and Return – Stories of returning emigrants
Coming Home: “Stories of young men and women who left Ireland and, after many years in exile, closed the circle of emigration by coming home again� – produced by the Safe Home project – also see their True Lives page.
Friday, July 24th, 2009
There are several heritage centres around Ireland with an emigration-related theme. Here are a few:
Jeannie Johnston
On-board museum highlighting the ship’s 16 voyages to America, in which the ship never lost any of its 2,500 passengers. Purchased as a cargo ship in 1848 by a Tralee merchant, it was used to transport emigrants over the next seven years.
Cobh Heritage Centre, Cork
Museum tells the story of the port of Cobh, the single most important point of embarkation and the 2.5 million people who departed there between 1848 and 1950.
Ulster-American Folk Park, Tyrone
Open-air, living-history museum telling the story of emigration from Ulster to America in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Dunbrody Emigrant Ship, Wexford:
Replica of three-masted barque built in Quebec that carried emigrants to New World from 1845 to 1870.
For more information on emigration-related cultural institutions around the world, see UNESCO’s Migration Institution’s website.
Friday, July 24th, 2009
A UK think tank has produced a paper asking whether there is a case for a major museum of migration in the UK; the suggestions contained in the Institute for Public Policy’s A moving story: Is there a case for a major museum of emigration in the UK? are highly relevant for Ireland.
As Barbara Roche, the chair of the Migration Museum Working Group and former UK Minister for Immigration, says, “The establishment of a Museum of Migration, and indeed the journey towards it, would be a powerful signal that the UK has embraced the centrality of migration in our national life. Emigration and immigration are bound up with what it means to be British. ”
The same, could of course, be said about Ireland. Ireland currently has no national museum of emigration, although there are a number of smaller attractions that base their appeal on their links to emigrant history. Perhaps the most prominent of these is the Cobh Heritage Centre, which has an exhibition on the story of emigration from the port town.
The Dunbrody Visitor Center in New Ross, however, is slated to become a new national emigration history centre with a geneological facility and several exhibitions relating to the emigrant experience.
The report makes several recommendations; many of these are worthy of consideration for Ireland as well.
- Establish a “Migration in Museums” steering group
- Build a “Migration in Museums” coalition consisting of key players
- Create a “brand identity” to link up existing initiatives
- Establish a migration heritage web portal or “virtual museum”
- Encourage the reinterpretation of existing collections from a migration perspective
- Create a database of researchers working on migration history
- Create a schools outreach programme
- Establish an international outreach programme to capture the stories of migration and settlement from British emigrants abroad
- “Moving Stories”: a major touring exhibition for 2012
- Establish a Museum of Migration as a “hub with spokes”
The recommendation about a brand identity to link up several initiatives is a good one for Ireland. An emigrant heritage center map could be a useful tool for tourists; a virtual museum could arise out of such a network as well. Ireland already has several programmes running to capture stories of emigrants; oral history among older Irish emigrants around the world is currently a popular and worthwhile activity. Linking them up would be useful and would give a larger profile to individual initiatives. The Irish Emigration Curriculum website could be used as a tool in a schools outreach program.
Of course the report is also relevant to Irish concerns as any museum of migration in the UK would include the Irish role in the UK’s inward migration flow. The background report accompanying the recommendations notes that there is a surprising lack of visibility of the Irish diaspora in the UK’s heritage centre. It says, “the Irish community has not been the subject of any major exhibition”. This underrepresentation has resulted in the misrepresentation of the Irish community in Britain.
The background report also examines a number of museums of migration around the world, which have been increasing in number since the late 1990s.
The entire report is well worth reading:
Related web pages:
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