County Limerick

Visited a Museum in Cashel, Co Tipperary called Cashel Folk Village, http://www.cashelfolkvillage.ie and it was a very interesting experience. A small museum, based in an old pub, it was reminiscent of the interior of a private dwelling; the contents of someone’s cluttered back room. There was a wealth of information on Ireland’s turbulent history portrayed through written, photographic and AV material. There was a vast array of memorabilia on Irish culture, particularly the famine and the Civil War, two factors that have had an immense influence on the nation’s cultural identity.

I have left an email address with the proprietor so that I might be able to purchase some of the AV material shown at the museum. I also hope to maintain some form of contact over time, as he seems a very interesting and knowledgeable man on local history and may prove an invaluable source for my intended project.

Research Material

I had previously been researching in the library for books on Irish Identity and picked up a few to browse through. One in particular was entitled: Of Irish Descent by Catherine Nash and was interesting in that it talked about how Irish history, in particular The Famine, religious divide and the Civil War, influenced their culture and the way that the Irish people and their descendants are perceived and indeed perceive themselves on a global level. I think that it will be an invaluable reference book as a lot of the material is directly relevant to both the thesis and the final project.

I recently read a book entitled Gypsy Girl by Rosie McKinley. It was a very interesting insight into Irish traveller culture and tradition and how strongly it is valued. Similar to the Irish community in that religion played a very important part in their lives, the author narrated her experiences of growing up in a traveller family and how changing times affected the values and ideals of the travelling community. The author highlighted the bigotry and ostracism that the travelling community encountered on a regular basis, a prejudice quite similar to that faced by Irish immigrants throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly the first half. There were signs on the doors of some public establishments stating “no blacks, no dogs, no Irish” as late as the 1960’s!

The book inspired me to look up traveller photography and I came across the news of the High Court appeal regarding the eviction of travellers from the country’s largest illegal site, Dale Farm, Basildon. I also came across a webpage entitled The Advocacy Project by Susan Craig-Greene who spent two years, from 2009 to 2011 with the travelling community at Dale Farm. The result of this collaboration was a photographic project featuring residents of Dale Farm. By erecting a simple white background on site and gaining the support and trust of the community, she was able to create a photographic collection some of which are reminiscent of the work of Richard Avedon. I think that the photos really capture the community spirit and the strong family values of the subjects.

  © Susan Greene 

I have enclosed a link to the project.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/advocacy_project/sets/72157623770759967/show/

 

Third Year Project

In my first year at university, I worked on a project centred on the “regulars” at a local Irish centre. It was a photographic study on Irish immigrants from the 1950s and their personal memories from their homeland and consequent ‘new life’ in England. I particularly enjoyed this project and was encouraged to work on it at the latter stages of the degree, hence the content of this blog!


I am still not 100% sure of the format I intend to take though I am pretty sure it will run along the lines of second generation Irish paralleled with the original Irish immigrants: ie mother/father – son/daughter. I will have a better idea of the final project once I have talked to my tutors. If this does ultimately become the format that I use, I think I would prefer to work with people that I know as I feel that I will get more out of them. I also intend to concentrate on possibly five families maximum and spend more time with them. I had previously worked with more people and I think that I need to condense the quantity in order to achieve a higher quality for my finals.