GAA conference: Croke Park, Dublin – 25 April
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009The GAA in the Diaspora is one of the topics that will be discussed in an upcoming conference at Croke Park. The conference is part of the 125th anniversary celebrations of the organisation, and is being co-hosted by the GAA Museum, Sports History Ireland and the Boston College-Dublin’s GAA Oral History Project.
The conference will feature historians of society and sport from Ireland and overseas. In addition to the diaspora, they will discuss such topics as hurling’s ancient roots, the socio-economic background of players, the GAA in film and photography, the GAA and the Irish language, and the GAA and politics.
The conference will be held at the GAA Museum in Croke Park. Tickets, which cost 15 euro (10 for students and seniors) are essential.
For more information:
- www.gaa.ie/museum (site was down at time of writing)
- Boston College: GAA – Oral History Project
Diaspora a reason to rejoin the Commonwealth?
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009A new group urging that Ireland rejoin the Commonwealth has invoked the Irish diaspora in support of the idea.
In a letter that appeared in the Irish Times, the backers of “Ireland and the Commonwealth” said,
Members of the Commonwealth share a common heritage and history, including an Irish diaspora of some 20 million people – an international community that seems certain to grow as many people are forced by economic circumstances to emigrate from Ireland.
The letter continued with an outline of the Commonwealth’s benefits:
Membership of the Commonwealth is more relevant than ever as Ireland faces its worst economic crisis since the foundation of the state. The county is going to need all the friends and connections it can get in the perilous economic times that lie ahead. The Commonwealth is not an alternative or substitute for Ireland’s membership of other international bodies such as the EU or the UN but it could prove to be an invaluable addition if our worst fears about the global economic crisis are fulfilled.
Ireland’s membership of the Commonwealth would, we are sure, be welcomed by the unionist community in Northern Ireland as significant gesture of reconciliation. It would add to the collaborative framework established by the Belfast and St Andrew’s agreements. It would demonstrate unequivocally that the Republic has finally drawn a line under the troubled history of Anglo-Irish relations that led to Ireland’s self-exclusion from the Commonwealth 60 years ago. It would represent a further important step along the road to a pluralist Ireland in which different identities are recognised and respected, a country that celebrates its multi-cultural heritage and diverse history.
A follow-up letter in the Irish Times noted, however, that “‘Commonwealth citizens’ have no extra rights of travel or work – for instance, they need to apply for a visa to visit member-state Australia, just as Irish people do.”
See related websites:
Film highlights Irish immigration to English town
Monday, March 30th, 2009Two filmmakers in South Tyneside, England, have made a documentary about the impact of immigration into the town of Jarrow.
Director Gary Wilkinson and playwright Tom Kelly created “Little Ireland” using archive material, photographs and interviews with descendants of Irish immigrants.
The 40-minute film has been an instant success at home, selling out two screenings in South Shields earlier this month.
The pair are now trying to interest Irish film festivals, and have sent out copies to film festivals in Dublin, Belfast, Waterford and Cork.
The film is available from the South Shields Central Library for £10.
See related web pages:
Irish nun recognised for work in India
Monday, March 30th, 2009An Irish nun has been recognised in Carlow for her fifty years of working with the poor in India.
Sister Cyril Mooney (72), A Bray native who moved to India when she was twenty, runs programmes in Calcutta aimed at helping street children.She was honoured in Carlow by the Friends of Calcutta group, who organised a “This is Your Life” tribute. It was attended by over 200 people including the Indian ambassador.
Sr Mooney has previously received one of India’s highest honours, the Padma Shree; she is one of the few foreigners to be so honoured.
Read the report in the Irish Times:
Irish nun honoured for 50 years of helping street children of India
Mystery of immigrants’ mass grave may be solved
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009The mass grave of a group of Irish railroad workers who died in 1832 during a cholera outbreak may have been located at last, thanks to the efforts of researchers in Pennsylvania who have spent six years searching.
The 57 men had arrived from Derry, Donegal, and Tyrone, hired by fellow Irishman Philip Duffy to build the railway. They were all dead within six weeks, felled by a cholera outbreak – and researchers believe some men may have been murdered. Their families were never notified, and the men would have been forever forgotten had Immaculata University professor William Watson and his historian brother Frank not discovered a mention of the deaths in a file owned by their late grandfather, a former railway worker.
The men were believed to have been buried somewhere in Duffy’s Cut, an area near Philadelphia, but the exact location of their remains was unknown until a team led by the Walsh brothers and professors at Immaculata University began a search in 2003.
It wasn’t until last week that the team discovered human remains. Researchers are now hoping to match DNA recovered from the bodies with that of families in Ireland in order to identify the remains and re-bury them in Ireland. They have used ships passenger lists to discover fifteen of the 57 men’s names.
News of the find has been widely reported in the US. The men’s story has been told in a film, “The Ghosts of Duffy’s Cut”, which is available on the Duffy’s Cut project website.
Related webpages:
New Irish in London face hard times, says paper
Monday, March 23rd, 2009The Irish Times has carried a bleak article on recent Irish arrivals in London. Reporter Carl O’Brien points out the dramatic change that has occurred with the downturn:
For many younger people, the maudlin emigration songs with their tales of yearning and aching loneliness felt like stories from a distant era. Suddenly, they don’t feel so remote anymore. As the shutters are pulled down on job opportunities at home, the harsh prospect of having to find work abroad is all too real for thousands of young people.
This statement is from 29-year-old who has left his four-year-old behind in Portlaoise and now working 12-hour shifts six or seven days a week:
“You miss home, you miss your family, you miss your friends. I was training a soccer team at home. Every time I ring my son, it’s, ‘are you collecting me today, Daddy’, so that’s tough. Any chance I get to go home, I take it to try and see him and the family. With the job here, though, it’s hard to know when you’ll be free.�
The article highlights a few reasons to be optimistic about this generation of emigrants. Today’s young people tend to be better educated and more confident than in the past. Danny Maher, chief executive of Cricklewood Homeless Concern told the paper,
“I think this is a totally different group of people. This generation is better able to adapt and they’re more globally-minded. If someone is in a vulnerable position, through drink or drugs or whatever, this is the last place they should be . . . These days, the Irish are more likely to be in the wealthier suburbs – they don’t need safety in numbers anymore. That can only be a positive thing.�
Local GAA clubs report that they are assisting people with jobs and contacts, while the London Irish Centre in Camden reports getting four or five people a week in need of emergency assistance. Peter Hammond says,
“In the old days you could just turn up at a construction site looking for ‘the start’. Those days are gone. You need accreditation, training, national insurance numbers.
“We always had a trickle of vulnerable people with drink or drug problems here during the boom. But now there are jobless people ending up homeless or in need of emergency support. We have a fund for repatriations. I’d say we’re putting someone on a Ryanair flight back to Ireland on a weekly basis.�
Read the article on the Irish Times website: Hard times for Irish in London.
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