Look Back to Look Forward: 50 years of the Irish in Britain was launched with an event addressed by the Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Queen's University Belfast, Professor Richard Miles, and the new Mayor of Belfast, Róis-Máire Donnelly.
It is timed to coincide with the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, the world's largest celebration of Irish music, language, song and dance being held in Belfast for the very first time with thousands of visitors flowing into the city.
The exhibition celebrates the lives, resilience and legacies of both people who moved to Britain as well as the experiences of second-generation Irish families.
The exhibition is hosted in Belfast by Queen’s University as part of its Fleadh Cheoil na héireann Fringe programme.
Northern Irish connections
Of the more than 50 personal testimonies featured in the exhibition, several are from people from Northern Ireland or with a strong connection to it.
They include Bangor-born William Foote, now director of the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith, London and Portstewart-born actor Claire Hagan, who reflects on growing up as a lesbian in a Protestant community in Portstewart before moving in 1989 to build a new life in Leicester.
It also features Castlewellan native Fr Gerry McFlynn, who speaks about his decades supporting Irish prisoners in England and Wales; Geoff Bell, the Belfast-born, now London-based, writer and socialist political activist; and Alice Delahunty from Roslea, Co. Fermanagh, who recalls how finding a new community in Dance Halls across England was so important for her and her friends.
Also included are two women from Derry City - Dr Maev McDaid, a harpist and researcher at the University of Sheffield, who speaks about her community activism and how central Irish music is to her identity and Hilda McCafferty, who moved to London in the 1970s and worked in education and championed Irish studies in schools when elected to the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA).
Drawing on emotive oral histories, archival material, photography, film, and audio recordings, the exhibition documents people’s different experiences of leaving home behind, of setting up life in a new place, community activism, work, and cultural identity.
Admission is free and it's open 11am-4pm every day in the Elmwood Hall until 16 August
+ A special late night opening for Late Night Art on 6 August 5.30-8pm.
Well-known faces
Several well-known faces have contributed to the exhibition, including actors Adrian Dunbar, Ardal O’Hanlon, and Jamie Beamish, who read moving excerpts from transcripts of interviews with Irish labourers who lived in Arlington House in London in the 90s.
Other well-known names featured include actors and presenters Siobhán McSweeney and Aisling Bea, broadcaster Terry Christian, Siobhan Fahy from Bananarama and Shakespears Sister, musician Jah Wobble, and poet Laurie Bolger, who wrote a specially commissioned poem inspired by the project.
The exhibition has been seen by over 120,000 visitors at EPIC, The Irish Emigration Museum and toured across major cities in Britain.
The stories within the exhibition are as inspirational as they are heart-breaking and capture a breadth of lived experience rarely brought together in one place.
The exhibition was made possible thanks to generous funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks also to the Irish government's Reconciliation Fund and UKR Group for supporting the exhibition's opening in Belfast.
For a taste of the histories we recorded check out our online Exhibition
Full details of all the events hosted by Queen's during the Fleadh HERE.