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    UK report on migration museum relevant to Ireland

    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.

    1. Establish a “Migration in Museums” steering group
    2. Build a “Migration in Museums” coalition consisting of key players
    3. Create a “brand identity” to link up existing initiatives
    4. Establish a migration heritage web portal or “virtual museum”
    5. Encourage the reinterpretation of existing collections from a migration perspective
    6. Create a database of researchers working on migration history
    7. Create a schools outreach programme
    8. Establish an international outreach programme to capture the stories of migration and settlement from British emigrants abroad
    9. “Moving Stories”: a major touring exhibition for 2012
    10. 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:

    Duffy’s Cut dig becomes murder investigation

    Friday, July 24th, 2009

    As research into the deaths of the men of Duffy’s Cut continues, researchers have confirmed what many have long suspected: that not all the men died natural deaths.

    The men of Duffy’s Cut were 57 Irish immigrants from the Donegal area working on the Pennsylvania railroad who died in 1832 during a cholera epidemic. They would be forgotten today were it not for the efforts of Wiliam Watson, the head of the history department at Immaculata University, his brother, the Rev. Dr. Frank Watson, and a team of academics and students, who for the last six years have been investigating their deaths.

    They have now identified one of the men, 18-year-old John Ruddy, and determined that a rock had been lodged in his forehead.

    IrishPhiladelphia.com has the story, with photos and a video of the presentation of the story to Irish Ambassador Michael Collins.

    Related web pages:

    198 Irish people win in US Diversity Visa Lottery

    Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

    This year’s Diversity Visa lottery results are in, and 198 people from the island of Ireland have been awarded the opportunity to continue the visa process – out of a total of 13.6 million applicants.  There were 167 from the Republic, up from 132 last year, and 31 from the North, up from 35 last year, according to the latest newsletter of the Coalition of Irish Immigration Centers.

    The CIIC warns that winners will need to act promptly, and those who are living or who have lived in the US should contact their nearest Irish centre to make sure they are eligible and to receive assistance in completing the forms.

    Entrants (who previously completed online DV entry through the official website at http://www.dvlottery.state.gov) should be able to check the status of their entry through the e-DV website.  Applicants will need to use their own confirmation page information from the time of their entry (October 2, 2008, to December 1, 2008), to check the status and to find out if their Diversity Visa Lottery entry was or was not selected. To check the status of an application go to: http://dvlottery.state.gov/ESC/

    The CIIC says that this year’s applicants can check online to see if they are successful, although they will also get results in the mail:

    The CIIC has also reissued its warning about DV lottery scams:

    • DV lottery winners were notified by mail between May and July and they will be provided further instructions, including information on fees connected with immigration to the U.S.
    • Those selected are NOT notified by email
    • Those individuals NOT selected will NOT receive any notification so if you receive a notice please verify that is is legitimate on the official website.
    • Read the fraud Warning on the US Department of State Website.
    • Currently the DV program is closed. No applications are being accepted.
    • There is only one official DV lottery site www.dvlottery.gov

    Visit the Coalition of Irish Immigration Centres website.

    Modern Wine Geese featured in Lyric FM series

    Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

    Of all the tales of Ireland’s contributions to the global economy, those from the wine world may be among the most romantic. A series running this summer on Lyric FM highlights the history of Irish involvement in wine but has a particular focus on Irish people shaping the wine industry today.

    • Episode one takes a look at the history of the wine trade in Ireland, with a visit to Ted Murphy, a wine trade veteran and expert on Ireland’s role in the history of wine.
    • Episode two pays a visit to Jim Concannon, a descendant of an Aran Islands family, who pioneered Southern California’s Livermore Valley, and Jim Barrett, who created the wine that won “The Judgement of Paris in 1976”, a major victory that forever changed the image of Californian wines.
    • Episode three visits Frances Mahoney, who helped modernise Sonoma.
    • Episode four takes a look at the latest wave of “Wine Geese” including a couple who who left Dublin to open an organic vineyard in Dordogne.

    The programmes are available on the Lyric FM website.

    Web pages related to the Wine Geese:

    Enhance citizenship opportunities, says diaspora group

    Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

    A new group has been set up on social networking site Ning.com to advocate for enhanced citizenship rights for the diaspora. The group, Irish Diaspora for Irish Citizenship, says the 1986 law that for the most part restricted citizenship based on descent to those with Irish-born parents or grandparents should be reversed.

    The group points to a number of reasons for restoring the rights of those with Irish-born great-grandparents. The economic argument probably most matches the Irish zeitgeist at the moment; one of the site founders, James Ryan McNelis, says that Ireland would have increased access to a highly-educated workforce and source of investment. There would also be a direct economic benefit through processing fees paid by new citizens, and he anticipates that new citizenship opportunities would result in increased tourism.

    The Strategic Review of Irish-US Relations, launched by the Taoiseach in March, does address the desire of some in the diaspora for enhanced citizenship opportunities. While it does not go so far as to suggest a reversal of the 1986 legislation, it does seek to broaden official recognition of Irish links, and proposes one narrow path for enhanced citizenship opportunities.

    Under current law, Irish citizenship is no longer available for the great majority of Americans of Irish ancestry. Conscious of the need to keep our ties strong with this entire ancestral group, both now and in the future, we should look at ways of encouraging and facilitating people, who are not entitled to citizenship, to give expression to their Irish ancestry. One such measure could be a new certificate of Irish ancestry which, while having no legal standing as such, would constitute official recognition for many people of their familial and emotional connection with Ireland.

    Consideration could also be given to establishing a fast track naturalisation regime for those with Irish great-grandparents who, although not eligible for citizenship by virtue of descent, have demonstrated a particular affinity with Ireland having spent time in Ireland as students, with the time, or a portion of the time spent in Ireland as a student, exceptionally counting towards residency in Ireland requirements of the naturalisation process.

    This issue was also raised last year, when an Irish-American journalist wrote to the Irish Times calling for the opportunity to relocate to Ireland; she, too, was too many generations away from Ireland to qualify for citizenship.

    In any case, with so many initiatives proposed to enhance greater engagement with the global Irish community, it seems likely that this is an issue that will continue to be of interest.

    Related web pages:

    Maryland dig aims at exploring diaspora experience

    Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

    A project exploring the experience of Famine-era migrants in Maryland aims to connect the history of one destination town with wider questions about the Irish diaspora and with the emigrants’ place of origin.

    It’s an archaeological dig in Texas, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore that was founded around 1847 by Irish immigrants; many of the immigrants came from the Roscommon townland of Ballykilcline, after they were evicted during the famine. The dig is aimed at discovering the everyday lives of working-class Irish in America, and University of Maryland assistant professor Stephen Brighton, who is directing the dig, told the Baltimore Sun that it is the first to do so.

    So far, a student group that spent six weeks working on the site have found a number of artifacts such as pennies, bottles, buttons, toys and pottery shards. The dig on the site will resume next year, while researchers will spend many months examining the artifacts unearthed so far.

    The project is seeking to answer questions such as:

    • What impacts did the Famine, eviction, and transportation have on rural Irish cultural practices?
    • What kind of social and material life did Irish evictees have after settling in Texas and how was it affected by their traumatic Irish past?
    • What cultural and material practices were adopted in the United States?
    • How does this compare to other Irish immigrant experiences throughout the United States?

    The project is most unusual for its links between Ireland and the US, and the intensity with which Ballykilcline has been studied. There are societies focusing on both the descendants of those who used to live in Ballykilcline, and two books have been published about the area and its emigrants.

    Related websites:

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