Category: News

The Irish Passport and why Ireland is a conversation

An explosion of podcasts has seen everything from cuddles to unsolved murder cases examined and presented in the audio world. Flying high amongst them is The Irish Passport, an exemplar model of long-form, multi-voiced, thought-provoking documentary, which invites listeners to consider the many voices and experiences of Ireland and the Irish.  Whilst Coronavirus thwarted plans to bring the team over for #LIF2020, it doesn’t stop us sharing their views on exchange or how exchange influences the shape and nature of the programme.

In the context of exchange, The Irish Passport Podcast brings together three major aspects of the island’s identity: culture, history, and politics. Hosted by Naomi O’Leary, European correspondent for the Irish Times, and Tim Mc Inerney, lecturer in cultural history at the University of Paris at Saint-Denis, each episode takes on a theme that forges links between these three dimensions of the Irish experience. As a series “about” Ireland, the podcast has always aimed to recognise that national identity is not a static phenomenon; on the contrary, it is dynamic by definition, only existing through constant engagement and conversation. Ireland, of course, boasts its fair share of national clichés, but the reality of Irishness in any period has always been complex and changeable. As with any country, whatever Irish people do becomes part of their national story, and this narrative is continually being revised and reconstructed by each of us every day.

The podcast has sometimes highlighted how a failure to recognise the importance of exchange can create significant and often harmful gaps in understanding. Perhaps most redolent, in this regard, was the turbulent political moment in which the podcast was founded. Just a few months previously, the Brexit referendum result had unearthed a host of urgent questions about the island’s political future. [On the island of Ireland], the UK’s land border with the Irish Republic was now on course to become the only frontier between the United Kingdom and the world’s biggest trading block. Here, too, the hard-won peace that followed thirty years of bombings and paramilitary conflict was suddenly being undermined. [It fast became clear] that two territories –one which voted overwhelmingly for the UK to remain in the EU, and the other which did not vote at all– might bear the greatest brunt of the Brexit fallout. And yet, despite these incredibly high stakes, the topic of Ireland had been almost entirely absent from political debates in Britain before the Brexit vote. Instead, as we discovered on the podcast, there persisted a longstanding and seemingly systemic knowledge gap about the island of Ireland, even among some of the most senior politicians in Westminster. Where there might have been meaningful exchange, superficial assumptions were all too often to be found; in place of solutions, it followed, there seemed to be room only for successive crises.

Such communication failures, of course, have not been confined to the clumsier machinations of Brexit. Across the vast Irish diaspora, outworn ideas of Ireland as a pious, conservative, and arch-traditionalist society have long been at odds with the reality on the island itself. Conversely, suspicions or misunderstandings among the people who live in Ireland about the greater international Irish community are often rooted in reductive stereotypes. Even on the island itself, the two political jurisdictions are only now – twenty years after the Good Friday Agreement – really beginning to come to terms with the diverse political and cultural legacies that have made the country what it is today. Significantly, the recent centenary of the Easter Rising in 2016 was conceived not in a spirit of triumphalism or mindless flag waving, but rather in an atmosphere of self-interrogation and national reflection. It not only commemorated the achievements of the independent state over the last 100 years, but acknowledged its many failings. And it asked, in light of those last hundred years, what the people of the nation wanted their country to look like another century from now.

All this has provided rich subject matter for the podcast, which not only delves into the more complicated facets of what it means to be Irish, but endeavours to give voice to those whose perspective has been largely absent from established narratives. In the few years since the podcast began, Irish society has already transformed in ways which would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago. Two landmark referendums on equal marriage and abortion access were passed with resounding mandates, not only reflecting a younger generation no longer beholden to the old templates of authority, but also an older generation who have stood up and challenged the mores of their youth. On the podcast, we have heard voices from the Travelling community, who have recently gained ethnic minority status after centuries of persecution at home and abroad. We have spoken to activists and protesters, challenging broken systems like public housing deficiency, healthcare, and systemic racism. We have travelled internationally to speak to those of Irish descent as far afield as Japan. And we have also spoken to people from across the political spectrum in Northern Ireland: nationalists who hope one day for a United Ireland, unionists who cherish the continued connection with the United Kingdom, and those who see themselves as something in between – with complex identities and allegiances that do not always fit neatly into grand narratives or eye-catching media headlines. It is here, in what has all too often been considered the “margins”, that the real essence of Irish society can be found. Indeed, it is only by listening to and engaging with all these diverse perspectives that we can begin to recognise the real face of this country.

While the podcast has aimed to narrow some of the more prevalent “knowledge gaps” about Ireland and its greater international sphere, it also recognises that knowledge at one point in time can only achieve so much. To really understand a place, a people, and what its contained in their culture, history and politics, one must become part of this national exchange. All countries are made and remade by their people – and if Ireland in the last few years is anything to go by, it may only take the blink of an eye for those people to entirely reinvent their homeland once again.

Episodes of The Irish Passport Podcast are available on all major podcast providers, and via their website: www.theirishpassport.com. Extra content is also available on the podcast’s Patreon page: www.patreon.com/theirishpassport

We hope we’ll see the team at #LIF2021.

Oscar Wilde: Art, Culture, Democracy, and Exchange

Across the Festival, we have asked our partners, collaborators and artists to consider “exchange”. It is a means of connecting the programme to provide a cohesive message, whilst also demonstrating the benefits of coming together, even during times when this cannot be physically so. In the following article, Dr Ó Donghaile illustrates why Oscar Wilde was so ahead of his time, when it came to views on exchange and the benefit of art and culture to society. As Deaglán’s work on Wilde expands, we aim to continue sharing his research, looking more deeply in to Wilde’s enduring legacy, the lessons he left us with and how such a man might be received today.

Oscar Wilde: Art, Culture, Democracy, and Exchange
Dr Deaglán Ó Donghaile; British Academy Research Fellow, Liverpool John Moores University

Throughout his life, Oscar Wilde believed passionately in the importance of cultural and artistic exchange. He argued that art and literature were part of the common human heritage and that they should be shared among everyone. At a very early stage in his career, and long before his most famous literary works were published, Wilde set out his ideas on literature’s centrality to culture when he gave his first lecture in the United States. In this talk, entitled Our English Renaissance (first delivered in New York City, January 1882, and then at different venues across the US), Wilde told audiences that Aestheticism –the literary and artistic movement of which he was a leading figure- was not an exclusive club. It was a movement dedicated to the sharing of artistic, cultural and literary ideas. He believed that the enjoyment of beauty should be experienced and enjoyed by all and widely exchanged.

In his lecture, Wilde pointed out that similar ideas and theories had already been proposed by poets, philosophers and painters from antiquity to the nineteenth century. His long list of international figures included Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Geoffrey Chaucer, Dante Alighieri, Michelangelo, Albrecht Dürer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Giuseppe Mazzini, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Lord Byron, William Blake, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Walter Scott, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth and John Keats. He also included more recent writers, artists and critics, such as John Ruskin, Algernon Swinburne, the Pre-Raphaelite painters, Charles Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman and William Morris.

Wilde described Aestheticism’s renewal of culture as ‘our English Renaissance’. As an Irish writer he was clearly stating that art and culture could be shared outside limiting national boundaries. This, he insisted, could democratise art because it represented ‘a new birth of the spirit of man’ resembling the Italian Renaissance in its promise of ‘a more gracious and comely way of life’. With its modernisation of ideas of beauty and form, it promised ‘new subjects for poetry, new forms of art, new intellectual and imaginative enjoyments’.

Wilde believed that Aestheticism provided ‘a nobler form of life’ and ‘a freer method and opportunity of expression’.  Cultural exchange was critical to this, as it imbued art with its essential ‘vitality’ in ‘this crowded modern world’. For Wilde, the world was a global community in which everyone should participate in art and culture. This made his views on culture explicitly political, as he felt that the best art was both historically engaged and socially conscious. Through the exchange of artistic and cultural ideas, every rank in society could experience the best that was offered by a broad, constructive and collective culture, without sacrificing the individuality of anyone.

This idea of the importance of mutual exchange within art and culture was a radical, democratic and republican notion. Wilde explained that Aestheticism, with its ‘passionate cult of pure beauty, its flawless devotion to form, its exclusive and sensitive nature,’ drew its inspiration from the French Revolution because democracy was ‘the most primary factor of its production’ and ‘the first condition of its birth’. Because it was democratic and transnational, art could transmit ideas about the possibility of a better life through ‘noble messages of love blown across the seas’.

Social and cultural exchange was the ‘definite conception’ of art because democracy was its ‘root and flower’. The artist could present ‘a vision at once more fervent and more vivid, an individuality more intimate and more intense’, fully charged with culture’s ‘social idea’ and its ‘social factor’. Wilde argued that culture’s potential lay in this shared reality. In it was found ‘that breadth of human sympathy which is the condition of all noble work,’ allowing it to express shared ideas, ‘as opposed to… merely personal’ ones. Art’s capacity to change people and society lay in its potential to convey ‘the love and loyalty of the men and women of the world’.

Wilde believed art should connect and transform people; he regarded it as a social practice that countered the alienating and privatised logic of competition and separation being imposed by modern capitalism. Exchange was culture’s ‘method of its expression’ because art conveyed the reality of the world. This had political implications for Aestheticism. As an internationalist and an Irish republican, Wilde was very conscious of the need to share and exchange cultural and artistic ideas across borders: ‘All noble work is not national merely, but universal’ he declared; ‘the political independence of a nation must not be confused with any intellectual isolation’.

For Wilde, art, literature and culture were forces for human unity and expressions of ‘perfect freedom’. He felt that ‘devotion to beauty and to the creation of beautiful things’ was ‘the test of all great civilised nations’. Through its constant exchange of artistic and social ideas, and sharing of literary and political thought, Aestheticism could contribute to the cause of international peace because ‘national hatreds are always strongest where culture is lowest’.  His lecture also emphasised that art and culture could unite artists with the working class: ‘between the singers of our day and the workers to whom they would sing there seems to be an ever-widening and dividing chasm, a chasm which slander and mockery cannot traverse, but which is spanned by the luminous wings of love’. Wilde would return to these ideas about global peace and the urgent need to remedy class conflict nine years later in his famous essay The Soul of Man Under Socialism’.

Today, at a time when questions of cultural inclusion and national belonging are being raised in Ireland, and elsewhere, we can still learn much from Oscar Wilde’s thoughts on the importance of sharing and exchange. Describing this practice as ‘the correlation of art’, he spent the rest of his life writing about the connections that drew people together in the hope that unity and understanding would ‘sweep away’ the barriers of class and empire that separated people from one another.

Dr Deaglán Ó Donghaile is a British Academy Research Fellow at the Department of English, Liverpool John Moores University. His latest book, Oscar Wilde and the Radical Politics of the Fin de Siècle, will be published by Edinburgh University Press in November. He is currently writing a critical biography of Oscar Wilde entitled Revolutionary Wilde.

Image Credit: Publicity photograph of Oscar Wilde, taken in New York by Napoleon Sarony in 1882, used under creative commons licencing from the website Oscar Wilde in America: A Selected Resource of Oscar Wilde’s Visits to America. https://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/sarony/sarony-photographs-of-oscar-wilde-1882.html, accessed 8/9/2020.

 

 

Thriving after The Troubles

Exchanges begin with introductions.

A chance meeting at a funding session led the Festival to be introduced to the Commission for Victims and Survivors, who -interested in the Festival’s work with dual heritage Irish lives, women and other marginalised groups- opened complex discussions about trauma and reconciliation. Ultimately, this introduction has opened an ongoing exchange in which we will learn how to work together to continue important reconciliation work. This, and our event Hard Histories, Positive Futures with Patrick Kielty, mark the first step in that exchange.

Exchange. A word with a relatively simple definition of giving and receiving. We hear it often when speaking of gifts, trade and currency. But what does “exchange” look like for a country recovering from over 30 years of conflict?

At this year’s Liverpool Irish Festival, the comedian Patrick Kielty and Northern Ireland’s Commission for Victims and Survivors explore notions of identity and recovery after adversity. They will consider why building dialogue, exchanging views and understanding the many complexities of the human experience can help people not just heal, but pave the way for a more inclusive and compassionate society.

For the Commission for Victims and Survivors, exchange is at the heart of all of its work.

They are different from the Victims Commission in England and Wales. Northern Ireland’s Commission is founded in law specifically for those impacted by the Northern Ireland Troubles, no matter where they reside.

Patrick has been no stranger to hurt and loss resulting from the violence in Northern Ireland. Having lost his father just days before his seventeenth birthday, Patrick has spoken often of his vision for a more reconciled Northern Ireland. At a time when discussing the difficulties and nuances of life in Northern Ireland was still treated with trepidation, Patrick was a leader in using the subject as material for his comedy work. In 2018 Patrick also presented a documentary, My Dad, the Peace Deal and Me to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

In 1998 Northern Ireland was a very different place to today. Governments internationally had committed to helping broker peace on the island of Ireland, which culminated in the Agreement. Only following 10 years of the peace process and the learning that generated, could the Commission start to address victim’s needs at government level. At the time, such an undertaking was still in its infancy. This was to be a new era of learning and teasing out issues; psychological and social. The decade between 1998 and 2008 prioritised a new and relative peace, addressing ‘the new normal’. This peace was to be the foundation upon which to build economic prosperity and a thriving tourist industry; victim’s needs had not yet been seen as central to that process.

In the spirit of ‘nothing about us without us’, the Commission established a Victims and Survivors Forum. This group of individuals -harmed in different ways, by varying aspects of conflict and The Troubles- embody the generosity of exchange needed to better understand the experiences of “the other”. They guide the Commission in its policy and research work.

For the Commission and its Forum, exchange is about such generosity and dialogue. It is hearing and understanding complex views -about a past much contested- and finding a way to mediate political ideologies and lived experiences to pave a way forward that benefits social cohesion. This is no mean feat as the issues they deal with go right to the heart of identity and culture – issues often at the root of division. The Commission and its Forum are deeply committed to the importance of that dialogue, no matter how uncomfortable, and to making compromises to find the common ground they can all stand on. In the words of one Forum member ‘it’s no good waiting for perfect, we have to do what we can here and now’.

So, why do these issues still matter over 20 years from the Good Friday Agreement?  And what relevance do they have to the Irish here in Liverpool? In the discussion, Patrick Kielty and two members of the Victims and Survivors Forum explore the many facets of Irish identity, culture, heritage and belonging. Of what it is to people to be Irish, Northern Irish, British and the other “ish-es” that make up the essence of “us”. Of how victims can have a positive impact on inclusivity, of shaping public spaces and ensuring that the arts and culture are used to create a thriving environment, which can simultaneously mark the past and indicate a brighter future.

They will consider how the unaddressed needs of truth recovery can stymie growth and transition from victim to survivor and ‘thriver’, delving into the notion of untold identity stories beyond “neat” conflict narratives.

Amongst those lesser heard stories is the English perspective. When the governments of Ireland, Northern Ireland and first sought to deal with societal issues arising from the conflict, the approach centred greatly around those from or resident in Northern Ireland. But what of the British Army veterans -or their widows- who served in Northern Ireland?  Or those in Warrington, Manchester, London and Birmingham whose lives were shaped by events that unfolded as a result of Northern Ireland’s conflict?  What are the prejudices faced by Irish people, and the children of Irish people, in Britain today as a consequence of The Troubles and memories -or received understanding- of the conflict?

The Commission’s passion for understanding this rich tapestry of different needs and experiences boils down to one simple factor: when dealing with human beings, no two experiences are the same. In understanding this, the Commission can better fulfil its objective to represent all victims, and ensure a better future for the children and grandchildren of victims and survivors.

Today Northern Ireland still enjoys relative peace, but the past’s impact can still very much be felt in the present. Political power-sharing still relies on very traditional nationalist/unionist allegiance amongst Northern Ireland voters. Education, housing and even sport are still very much segregated, whilst issues like Brexit amplify many pre-existing tensions. These are issues that remain difficult to address despite with the passage of time. The people of Northern Ireland are deeply committed to a long and lasting peace, but with the world’s gaze now diverted from Northern Ireland, are they yet able to pave this new road alone?

To learn mor abou the work of the Commission, we recommend atending our event, Hard Histroies, Positive Futures with Patrick Kielty on 17 Oct 2020, which you can find more about using this link.

Visit the Commission for Victims and Suvivors website.

 

A trip here a trip there-a correspondence

Art Arcadia and one of its residents -Gregory McCartney- look back at last year’s #LIF2019 partnership exhibit, sharing the work of Paola Bernadelli and Locky Morris.

Last year, Art Arcadia and the Festival tag-teamed a residency to create Watch me grow/a trip here a trip there, an installation spanning the duration of the Festival from its base at Sefton Park Palm House. Paola Bernadelli fuelled a visual dialogue with Locky Morris, an artist living in Derry (Paola’s usual home) creating a series of images, which we printed daily as part of the exchange. It was an exchange of ideas, spaces, talents… and the results are charming, funny and unexpected. We’ve set up a gallery of the images below. Impressed with the imagery and concept, Gregory McCartney (Art Arcadia residency alumnus) reviews the work.

Everything eventually becomes black and white. Grand narratives get replaced by other grand narratives and we are seemingly always placed in somebody’s political, economic or social taxonomy. Even the democracy and fragmentation that the internet promised has failed to live up to expectations. Subtlety is a threatened species in the online eco-system. It’s a place where everyone shouts. Even in an art world that supposedly embraces diverse approaches it’s the overblown and loudest work that often get all the attention. Which isn’t to say I have any objection to bombast. Anyone who has encountered anything I do can confirm that I have a taste for the epic. However, the epic can be found in the most subtle, fragile, ephemeral thing. The biblical passage in which God appears to Elijah as a breeze is a classic metaphor for beauty and awe in the gentlest of circumstance.

And Art Arcadia/Paola Bernardelli and Locky Morris’s Watch me grow/a trip here a trip there residency work is epic in the classic and contemporary sense of the word. Each day, Paola Bernardelli would wander around Liverpool producing a photo, to which Locky Morris would respond with one created in Derry. The result is fascinating; an abstract, subtle, sometimes sensuous dance of form and formlessness.

Another thing about contemporary existence is that it is not abstract. You’d think that we’d be exhausted from the on-the-nose directness of our lives and perhaps dive into a mysterious abstraction, but we don’t for the most part. We just try to shout louder than everyone else. What I love about Bernardelli and Morris’s correspondence (and it is a correspondence, if not the traditionally textual variety) is its epic quietness combined with a bubbling vitality. This isn’t an easy thing to create or even maintain. Think of all those paintings, those studies in form and expression slowly fading in modern art museums; the air and light seemingly draining any vitality they originally possessed from them. They actually look better in photographs. I’m doing some of these artists an injustice of course; Yves Klein’s paintings look as vibrant as ever, for instance.

Bernardelli and Morris’s photographs -whilst in the same painterly tradition- expand and update it to a wonderful degree, including the detritus, vibrancy and humour of contemporary Liverpool and Derry’s everyday existence. Every part of these photos is important and the content -though of ‘everyday stuff’- is certainly not banal (to use a word favoured by dodgy philosophers and unimaginative curators). These photos are however political (with a small ‘p’) in the sense that they do reflect the forces that shape their and our world. They don’t preach or offer any definite answers though. This would limit them. Art, to paraphrase James Thurber, doesn’t always have to be first at the barricades.

I’ve always been a bit conflicted about residencies. On the one-hand they are brilliant in generating experiences of new and unfamiliar places and people. I had a great residency in New York a few years ago. On the other hand, it’s pretty much impossible to go on a lengthy residency if you have a job, or a family, these days. I like the snapshot nature of this residency: a few days intervention in Liverpool culture for Art Arcadia resulting in work for Locky Morris to respond to. Perhaps there’s a prescience to it; we now find ourselves corresponding remotely and often obsessing over the minutest of details. In fact, it is somewhat ironic that it’s such a tiny, invisible to the naked eye, virus that has caused such a massive upheaval in our daily lives, leaving us grasping for familiarity and often at odds with one and other.

There’s joy, sadness, pathos in these photos. In a time in which we literally cross the road to avoid people it’s important to remember we still are human. In a time where connection is potentially life threatening these photos show the power and the poetry of connecting.

I’ve liked Locky Morris’s work for a long time, in particular his (for want of a better word) ‘post-Troubles’ practice. Those little humorous interventions in the everyday brim with warmth and power. If I can show you ‘fear in a handful of dust’ I can also show you love, hate, sadness, joy. In other words, I can show you humanity and what it is to be human. We need this more than ever these days. Similarly, I have liked the ‘process’ that is Art Arcadia; its questioning of the concept of the residency; its integration of the internet and social media, in particular into this concept. Locky can take part in a residency without leaving home; I was part of Art Arcadia’s excellent Lockdown Residencies series (http://artarcadia.org) without leaving my sofa.

One thing tragedy does is make the world a bigger place and at the same time a smaller one. The pandemic is raging across the world making it strange and distant, but we are confined to our home towns and to our computer screens. It doesn’t mean we can’t come up with powerful, beautiful things though. As this project proves: we can find meaning and indeed new meaning in the smallest of things and in the most familiar places. This is vital, particularly these days.

Gregory McCartney is editor of Abridged https://www.abridged.one/

Paola Bernadelli is Founder and Director of Art Arcadia (Derry, Northern Ireland) with whom the Festival have an ongoing partnership. She stayed in Liverpool for the duration of #LIF2019, acting as artist, communicator, curator and set builder! The Festival is indebted to Paola for her determination to battle the difficulties, take opportunities and collate an insightful, competent and humorous body of work. Locky Morris’s unique perspective on collective identity, experience and humour played a witty hand in the final exhibition and exemplifies his wry eye, compositional skill and ability to forge open dialogue. For #LIF2020 we are bringing Edy Fung in as a digital resident, so hope there will be much more to this Derry-Liverpool exchange and conversation.

 

Investor opportunities

The Liverpool Irish Festival has developed a number of ways investors can use the Festival to reach audiences, by providing space online and in our print.You can use our creative network to reach people in the community with your messages.In 2021, we have printed and are distributing 30,000 newspapers to communities who are interested in Liverpool, Liverpool Irish and Irish people, business, history, tourism, and culture. It will also be broadcast online, at a time when the internet has never been in so much demand. All of this will land in October, this year.

With space sizes and prices ranging from tens of pixels at £75 to thousands of deliveries and £5,000 there really is an option for everyone, no matter what your business size.

Download our investor pack, here.

All proceeds go to support our charitable work, improving access to creativity and supporting artists. This is needed more than ever as arts funding has predominantly been redirected in to emergency and frontline resources. Your investment makes a difference for us.

If you would like to secure space with us, please email [email protected] ensuring your artwork is properly set up with 300dpi resolution and pixel sizes to suit the format you have selected. In addition, cmyk files are preferred, supplied as .pdf, .tiff or .eps files, with the fonts outlined. To find out how to outline fonts, click here.

Our initial submission deadline will be the end of August.

Please note space is limited: priority is offered to cultural organisations and businesses from within Liverpool or Ireland and from those with Irish connections, based on our readership. Other will be considered. All adverts must be inclusive, licence free and within the bounds of decency. This newspaper is distributed by the Festival to family audiences. Selection will be at Liverpool Irish Festival‘s discretion.

We look forward to presenting your business to our audience.

Equality and Black Lives Matter

<page originally published.

11 August 2022: update

In July 2021, Liverpool Irish Festival took part in a series of discussions alled ‘Firestarters’, run by Matchstick Creative. The series was designed to kickstart social change and offer transformative discussion and knowledge exchanges.

The report from these sessions has just been published (see here), featuring a quote from our Festival Director (see below). The session we featured in was called ‘Building Back Equal’. The conversation aimed to help sectors return to business post-Covid, but though creating better standards than before, helping create equity, which would in turn assisting social harmony and economic standards.

As we continue to work on a sector wide Race Equality Manifesto with Liverpool Arts Regeneration Consortium and Creatve Organisations of Liverpool, we continue to see how equity is something to be worked towards. We are not there yet, but -here at the Festival- we are still trying.

1 August 2022: update

Over the past few months, Liverpool Irish Festival has been working as part of a task group to create a manifesto for race equality in the arts in Liverpool and the wider region. Made up of members of Creative Organisations of Liverpool and Liverpool Arts Regeneration Consortia, we’re working together to create an active camapign, against which we can measure race equality improvement in our practices in meaningful and beneficial ways. It is the group’s intention to become signatories to the manifesto, which we will make public, to help hold one another to account for improved practices.

We have also been made aware of some practices that can help you to stay safe online whilst supporting Black LIves Matter and linked organisations. Read the article here.

Updated 27 May 2022

Liverpool Irish Festival has an ongoing commitment to anti-racist activity and the support of anti-racist work. We are proud that the city of Liverpool is hosting an anti-racist festival in 2022 and celebrate everyone who has come together to make that happen.

To see more about the coalition of support we are part of, via allies in Creative Organisations of Liverpool (COoL) and Liverpool Arts Regeneration Consortium (LARC), please visit this page. These groups are working together to create a joint statement about race equality, which will be cited here once complete.

It is worth noting that we remain dedicated allies of Baobab and -in its new structure- will become ‘Radical Friends’, supporting our Black African and global majority peers gain access to Black-led spaces whilst acting against white supermacist models, including abelism, xenaphobia, racism, gender inequality, etc.

Updated 22 April 2022

Progress update (June 2021)

Commitment

The Liverpool Irish Festival is an anti-racist organisation, striving to ensure inclusion across our programme. By understanding that #BlackLivesMatter, we recognise that we must continue to challenge assumptions. We must make representation and work to eliminate oppression based on race. Within this work are matters that concern us all. Here at the Festival, we are using our platform to include global communities by sharing work that represents multiple heritages and building programmes that help share knowledge, build acceptance and celebrate differences.

Representation

Our Black Lives Matter solidarity statement (below) is just one part of our work on representation, which includes building inclusivity agreements and expectations in to all our contracts; building a more diverse Board (including race, gender, sexuality, class and other intersectional aspects of life); generating an artistic programme that represents these intersectional aspects and using our voice to advocate for and champion diverse communities (Black, Irish, Irish Chinese, Scousers, etc) whenever we can and in keeping with our mission to bring Liverpool and Ireland closer together using arts and culture.

We always make sure our artist and audience demographics are transparent, using our Festival Review as a monitoring device for as many intersectional qualities as we can deliver, using contemporary evaluation methods.

Connection

The Festival is an active contributor to -and member of- groups we value as leading the way in the best (and most progressive) contemporary thinking and practice in these areas, including Creative Organisations of Liverpool, Cultural Connectedness Exchange Network and the Boabab Founation, among others. We take our role as active advocates and cultural champions seriously and make challenges, despite potential hardship. The right path is not always easy, but it is the most worthwhile and we are committed to using our voice to push for equality, equity and inclusion. We are challenging institutional and structural racism and ignorance (sometimes case by case) and driving for change as hard as we can in all apsects of our work, networks, community and outputs.

Actions

  1. We are undertaking comprehensive policy review to ensure that all policy provides strong anti-racist sentiment and accountability. This included our Artistic Policy, which can already be viewed here
  2. Set up the Cultural Connectedness Exchange Network to help Irish and Northern Irish creatives, especially with mixed and dual heritage, find representation in Irish and Northern Irish cultural spaces in England
  3. Undertaken Unconscious Bias and Equality Training with The Diversity Trust and Transgender Training with Transmissions Arts Project. Through these sessions we have identified a need to shift the labour of anti-racism from Black people to our own shoulders. Black Lives Matter is society’s fight and we need to increase our active alliance through action and activism
  4. Signed petitions and supplied letters of support to counter two cases of violence against Chinese community members, including attending sessions on Asian and East Asian hate crime and MP representation
  5. We are active members of an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion task group within Creative Organisations of Liverpool. We have also joined Baobab Foundation*
  6. Signed up to Inc Arts and are working through their diversity toolkit to improve the services we can. We recognise that our capacity and structure make certain changes difficult for us. For example, not being PAYE registered and having only one contracted role means it is complicated to fulfil all the ambitions of the toolkit and diversifying our team. However, we are working as hard as we can to align with best practices and make structural change where we can, via the lens of bringing Liverpool and Ireland closer together using arts and culture
  7. Written a number of funding applications to try to expand our team. If awarded, we will ensure the opportunities are shared broadly across the sector to ensure global majority communities are informed and welcomed to apply
  8. Worked to support and provide content for #IAmIrish’s #IrishRoots programme
  9. Continue to challenge oppression or ignorance when we witness it, including with national funding agencies. We have shown this in challenges on national strategy (such as about including festivals in national agendas) and in challenging assumptions, such as “all Irish people are white” or that “hate crimes don’t happen within white communities”. We are also advcates and representatives within our own networks, ensuring oppressed, isolated or previously silenced communities have an active ally
  10. Attended Tackling Race Disparities and Debating the Report’s Recommendations, regarding The Sewell Commission.

#BlackLivesMatter. #SayTheirNames (USA and UK).

*The Festival recently became a member of Baobab, a new foundation that seeks to do things differently by being led by the communities they intend to serve.

Following the #BlackLivesMatter demonstrations and the disproportionate deaths to Covid19, the Baobab Foundation was born with a desire to bring about real change to Black, ethnic minority people and other communities faced with racial injustice.

By bringing together and centering the voices of Black people and other communities facing racial injustice, we’re able to create an accountable, transparent, and collaborative body (The Baobab Foundation) that’ll be able to distribute funds to those often left out or excluded. If you’d be interested in learning more about Baobab here’s a one pager of how you can be involved and you can also sign up to become a member (free) here.

Black Lives Matter solidarity statement (issued August 2020)

  1. Introduction

On 2 June 2020 Liverpool Irish Festival began sharing #BlackLivesMatter notifications, including anti-fascist solidarity messages from peers about the brutal murder of George Floyd by a member of the Minneapolis Police Force. The Festival believes that the ongoing fight against racial injustice requires everyone’s support. The events between George Floyd’s murder and today have shown us that it is not enough to issue statements of solidarity. We have to do more: in our programmes, our staffing and governance and with audiences, partners and stakeholders.

The Festival will keep challenging and educating ourselves and will seek ways in which we can do better and contribute more effectively to the dismantling and eradication of institutional and societal racism.

We stand firmly with the promotion, vindication and assertion of the fact that #BlackLivesMatter.

  1. Recent activity

The Festival has questioned our practices and considered what we can do differently to affect positive change. We will continue expanding our dual-heritage lives programmes and working with Creative Organisations of Liverpool (COoL) members to develop programmes for Black History Month and the city. These programmes set multiple aims to develop community opportunities and generate greater understanding about tolerance, inclusion and eradicating systems of oppression.

For some time, Liverpool Irish Festival has been challenging ‘norms’ about Irishness and its place within the BAME framework, given the propensity for any discrimination or disadvantages that Irish people in Britain experience to be invisible and pass unrecognised. Our work with dual-heritage communities opens our work to Black community members, which we aim to build on, shout about and make specific invitations to.

We do not subscribe to or wish to engage in an ‘All Lives Matter’ debate.

  1. Programming

We are committing to developing work -annually- that encourages and necessitates Black engagement. Instead of a commitment to spend a specific percentage of funds on this work, we will actively develop accessibility and energetically embrace BAME diversity, disability, LGBTQI+ and neurodiversity within our programme. Our aim is that 25% of the annual programme (events, literature and web content features) will specifically address and involve these complex topics and communities. We will monitor related creative outputs against the total programme and report findings in the Festival Review, with a specific section on other minority ethnic communities and a direct address of #BlackLivesMatter.

Programme points

Therefore we will

  • review how we commit resources to commission more Black, Asian and minority ethnic artists, curators, academics and researchers within our physical and online programmes
  • review how we support existing platforms and networks led by Black, Asian and minority ethnic people, to amplify their work and extend context and reach
  • ensure we are inclusive of Black people in our events, exhibitions and learning programmes
  • invest in and support content that centres the experience of Black, Asian and minority ethnic people by supporting the artists and creatives who are already doing this work, seeking active partnerships, commissioning new work and sharing the work of others across our social media platforms
  • host and engage in conversation with artists, audiences and local communities to explore the use of our platform and networks to effect real change in our city and the sector.
  1. Contracts and Agreements

The Festival wants to centre ethics and equity in our choice of those suppliers who provide us with services and materials. We commit to supply our #BlackLivesMatter statement, as standard, with all Liverpool Irish Festival issued contracts, augmenting our existing ‘partnership agreement for inclusivity’, meaning those we work with commit to supporting #BlackLivesMatter agendas.

  1. Recruitment

The Festival will work hard to create opportunities to make our staff team (and the freelance creatives we contract), more representative of the communities in which we work. As a matter of priority, we will review how we recruit and appoint permanent and freelance, temporary and voluntary contractors and staff. We will consult on our organisational language to better understand what barriers we may, unconsciously, create. Supplemtenting this work, we will review how to appoint Black, Asian and minority ethnic people people as Trustees to increase representation on our Festival Board.

  1. Conclusion

We are working to open ourselves to change and be positive and active allies in the #BlackLivesMatter campaign. We recommend learning more about the movement, local issues and pursuing self-exploration into unconscious bias and other forms of institutional racism.

As creative producers and community representatives, the Festival recognises its potential to strengthen communities, enrich lives and transform thinking. We take this role seriously and hope this statement evidences our intention to improve systems, support Black people and take on active advocacy in pursuing equity. Most importantly, we hope it drives home that #BlackLivesMatter.

 

Reading and resources

Donate

Read about and other resource lists

#BlackLivesMatter watch and watch lists

 

Poetry project – ‘Lines from Lockdown’

Working with Writing on the Wall, Liverpool Irish Festival have selected two poems, which we believe hold incredible relevance to the lockdown situation we find ourselves within during 2020. We’ve worked with the Sefton Park Palm House ‘Palm Readers’ group to develop the project you see below.

Quarantine, by Eavan Boland, considers an aspect of Irish history that we will be leading several projects on over the coming years, An Gorta Mór also known as The Great Hunger or The Irish Famine. It reminds us of the politics involved in quarantine and the hardships people suffered, then and now. It makes us think about our gifts, our privilege and our heritage, reaching across the generations with love and a sadness that don’t always make the right decisions. Sadly, Eavan passed away in April 2020 and so the video resulting from the use of this poem will be the Festival’s tribute to her.

Stephen James Smith’s We Must Create reminds us that we must create to stay well, to find connection and to feel. It commits us to thinking of others by considering our connection and heritage, in addition to what we can bring to the world. Stepehn has approved the project and will be involved as we progress towards the Festival.

Both are written by Dubliners in the first quarter of the twenty-first century; both provide many layers of meaning, which we encourage you to explore as deeply as you are able.

The task

We would like to see your ‘covers’ of these poems, in whole or individual stanzas (numbered for easy identification). In the case of Stephen’s poem, We Must Create, we encourage you to write your own stanza to add to the end, so we can share these with Stephen and our Festival audiences. We’ve given you a rough example below. See ***

  • First and foremost, pick your poem -or poems- and decide if you are going to add a stanza to it for We Must Create. When sending your entry, let us know the stanza numbers you have covered for which poem. You are welcome to do all and both, but understand some would prefer to run shorter submissions
  • Run a quick test on your camera, DSLR or phone, to make sure your speech can be heard and the image is as clear as it can be. Try not to sit directly in front of a light, which will either put you in silhouette or bleach you completely!
  • Check you are filming in landscape and recording at the highest resolution your equipment allows
  • Start by addressing the camera with your full name and current location. Be creative – if the whole family are involved, that’s great – just let us know so we can credit you all!
  • Focus on the feelings the poem(s) generates in you
  • Once recorded, please send* your MP4 film to [email protected] via WeTransfer, with your name, age (in the case of minors), location and email, so we can credit you appropriately.

That’s it! We will splice the entries together to create a full performance of the poems and may put individual entries up on our site for you to access later, if they stand out.

Deadline for entries: Extended from Sun 9 Aug 2020 to Sun 13 Sept 2020.
First streaming of complete poem:  Thurs 15 Oct 2020, at the opening of the Liverpool Irish Festival. Anyone submitting their email address will be sent the link.
Download this information as a three page PDF.
General terms and conditions apply. You can see those on this page.

The Poems

Quarantine

Eavan Boland, born Dublin, Ireland 1944-died Dublin, Ireland 2020.

Stanza number Stanza
1 In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking—they were both walking—north.
2 She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.
3 In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.
4 Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:
5 Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.
From New Collected Poems by Eavan Boland.
Copyright © 2008 by Eavan Boland.
Reprinted by permission of W.W. Norton.
All rights reserved.

We Must Create

Stephen James Smith, born Dublin, Ireland 1982.

Stanza number Stanza
1 We must create to know who we can be
I say this for you, I say this for me
We must create to know who we can be
2 Early beginnings, heart beat warmth and you
First breath, eyes open a new point of view
Hands touch, ears hear, clocks ticking I am who?
We must create to know who we can be
3 Screaming out from within with a voice here
Notes flowing on air lulling the fear
Melody all around this atmosphere
We must create to know who we can be
4 Hearing truth in onomatopoeia
Boom, boom, belch, zoom, zap, playing with grandpa
While cookie cutting, baking for grandma
We must create to know who we can be
5 From scrawling with crayons to Lego bricks
From knitting needles, soft textile fabrics
To air-guitaring auld Jimi Hendrix
We must create to know who we can be
6 There are creative accountants, CVs
Tinder profiles where you look the bees knees
But best not to force it, it comes with ease
We must create to know who we can be
7 We heard a song sung, it helped ease the pain
We didn’t feel so lonesome as we sang the refrain
We forgot that feeling until we heard it again
We must create to know who we can be
8 From nursery rhymes to white collar crimes
What have you to say in uncertain times?
Have you a chance to change the paradigms?
We must create to know who we can be
9 Do you remember the time you heard an opening allegro
Or when that beat dropped and how it made your head go?
Some things make no sense unless you’re in flow
We must create to know who we can be
10 You may rise then fall, or fall then rise
An arc of a story contains no surprise
But how you tell it, therein the art lies
We must create to know who we can be
11 Artistry gives rise to community
We’re all part of a changing tapestry
There’s art history in identity
We must create to know who we can be
12 If you do it for the money you’ll be called a fraud
If you think you’re great company and you might be God
Delusions of grandeur aren’t that odd
We must create to know who we can be
13 There’s all sorts of forms, disciplines, levels
To challenge yourself in the intervals
Where you’ll find rivals and reasons for approvals
We must create to know who we can be
14 If it’s saved you from yourself
And now there’s no other way
It doesn’t matter how it moved you, welcome to the ballet
You’ve just found the peak of Parnassus, fair play!
15 We must create to know who we can be
I say this for you, I say this for me
We must create to know who we can be
We must create to know who we can be.
From Here Now by Stephen James Smith.
Copyright © 2019 by Stephen James Smith.
Reprinted by permission of Pace Print and the poet.
All rights reserved.*** To get you going, we’ve given you a little
starter for 10…

Commit to the process; trust in your speech
Engage in the idea, tweak gingerly
Film it and send it; await now to see
We must create to know who we can be.

General terms and conditions

  1. This is a community art project intended to provide a positive and creative activity during Covid-19 social restrictions. We have approached Stephen James Smith for use of his poem, which he has given freely. We have approached Eavan Boland’s publishers for use of the poem, but have not had official confirmation that we are free to use this work. having double checked permissions for the use of poetry we believe that the motivation and respect for the work suggests we are able to use it, respectfully and with safety. In the event that it is not permitted, we will remove the poem from this page and cease the project work around this poem.
  2. Criminality will be reported. Indecent submissions will be reported and rejected.
  3. All submissions must come with a named credit to be selected. This is for safeguarding and due credit if work is selected for press purposes
  4. The Liverpool Irish Festival will assume you have the right to use any imagery, likeness or art work sent to us in support of the poetry project. Please ensure you have these rights
  5. We will only accept and display respectful work and the Liverpool Irish Festival has final say in determining what this means. Our intention is to limit work to that which can be reasonably shared with all ages, without causing upset or alarm or triggering safeguarding or decency concerns. Content which flouts decency regulations will be reported
  6. The Liverpool Irish Festival reserves the right to use these entires online (web and social media); in our printed publications and our promotional materials. We will not sell your work or share your contact details without direct liaison (e.g., if a national publisher wanted an interview with you, we would contact you to permit contact).
Sefton Park Palm House logo
Sefton Park Palm House logo

Lockdown Lights – we need your stories

Liverpool Irish Festival is proud to announce that the Irish Government’s Emigrant Support Programme has confirmed support of our new project: Lockdown Lights from its Covid-19 emergency Response Fund. This involves you! We need your stories, 2D artworks and archive materials to help us build up a picture of our community.

The idea is to crowd-source submissions for our ‘Lockdown Lights’ project, which will categorise the stories under the following chapter headings:

  1. City heroes – your stories
  2. Irish impacts on the city – have you got images or tales of buildings, statues, places or times that affect the community that we can help people understand? Yes? Send them in!
  3. Lockdown responses – has someone in your community helped on the frontline of lockdown and do you want to honour them? Have you got images or tales of heroism; community engagement stories; artistic responses? Get them over to us!
  4. In memoriam – is there someone you would like to see remembered within and by the Liverpool Irish community? They could be from any time, but we will compile their images and stories in to an In Memoriam chapter where you can see them remembered
  5. Stars of the Future – do you know a dancer, teacher, doctor, artist or musician who you would like to hedge your bets on now? Do you want to see them celebrated? Then tell us about them.

The Festival will sort your entries in to online chapters and provide credits for each of the works. We will use our networks (including CARA, Irish Community Care and the Liverpool Irish Centre) and social media channels to gather stories for Lockdown Lights. We hope to celebrate you, your families, the work you have done and the life we have created in Liverpool. We want to leave a legacy from lockdown that helps us to understand our Liverpool Irish family better, remember those we have lost and celebrate those we think are going to be the bright sparks of our future.

So, if you are feeling a bit low (or are stuck for something to do) in lockdown think of a loved one or a funny experience you had at the Irish Centre and send it to us. Perhaps you are undertaking your family tree in lockdown and have found something interesting? Let us know. We want to share!

Key areas of interest for the Festival include: incredible In:Visible Women, dual heritage lives, stories about exchange, creativepursuits and accomplishments.

Submissions can be made via post or email and can include (but are not limited to)

  • photos or scans (by email only)
  • post cards and/or 2D artworks (non-returnable unless you can collect) – physical or graphics based
  • your poems and stories (handwritten or typed)
  • children’s art work (non-returnable unless you can collect)
  • MP3s and MP4s (MP4s preferably in landscape and good quality).

We encourage you to include something visual if you can – a passport photo or a signature; something to accompany a written piece. People love images and your story will gain more interest if people have an image to draw them in.

If emailing your submission please send it to [email protected] with the subject ‘Lockdown Lights‘ and if it is a large document, please use WeTransfer. If you are posting a submission, please send it: FAO Lockdown Lights. FF9 Northern Lights. 5 Mann Street, Liverpool L8 5AF.

Tips for filming MP4s/recording MP3s

  • Run a quick test on your camera, DSLR or phone, computer to make sure your speech can be heard and/or the image is as clear as it can be. When filming, try not to sit directly in front of a light, which will either put you in silhouette or bleach you completely!
  • Check you are filming in landscape and at the highest resolution your equipment allows
  • Make sure your microphone is picking up your voice and not too much background noise. If you find you are getting a lot of hissing or white noise, you may need to go somewhere less noisy or with more ‘padding’. Cushioned surfaces can help with this
  • Start by addressing the camera/microphone with your full name and current location
  • Focus on the story your are telling and the emotions it generates for you. If it’s sad, that’s ok – be free to share a tear -or a laugh- with us. It makes all the difference. We’re here to listen to you
  • Once recorded, please send your MP3 or MP4 to [email protected] via WeTransfer, with your name, age (in the case of minors), location and email, so we can credit you appropriately.

Deadline for submissions = extended Fri 28 Aug 2020 to Sun 13 Sept
Deadline for all work to be uploaded and shared: extended from Fri 4 Sept 2020 to Thurs 15 Oct 2020 at the Festival launch.

General terms and conditions

  1. This is a community art project intended to provide a positive and creative activity during Covid-19 social restrictions. We are not trained counsellors or mental health service providers. We would ask -for your wellbeing and privacy- to limit stories to those you are comfortable sharing publicly, for yourself and those involved. Criminality will be reported. If you need to share a personal story that does not fit this criteria we recommend contacting CARA on +44 (0) 151 237 3987 to identify the most appropriate service for your needs. Those of you with arts projects relaying deeply personal, long-form stories should contact us with your proposal, as outlined in our creative call, here.
  2. All submissions must come with a named credit to be selected. This is for safeguarding and due credit if work is selected for press purposes
  3. The Liverpool Irish Festival will assume you have the right to use any imagery, likeness or art work sent to us. Please ensure you have these rights
  4. We will only accept and display respectful work and the Liverpool Irish Festival has final say in determining what this means. Our intention is to limit work to that which can be reasonably shared with all ages, without causing upset or alarm or triggering safeguarding or decency concerns. Content which flouts decency regulations will be reported
  5. The Liverpool Irish Festival reserves the right to use these entires online (web and social media); in our printed publications and our promotional materials. We will not sell your work or share your contact details without direct liaison (e.g., if a national publisher wanted an interview with you, we would contact you to permit contact).

Featured image: taken from the Liverpool Irish Festival‘s Its the travelling Life exhibition, 2018, made with the Liverpool Irish Traveller community. The image was taken by Margaret ‘of day-to-day life at home’.

Government of Ireland - Emigrant Support Programme logo
Government of Ireland – Emigrant Support Programme logo

Wanted: theatre writer for musical theatre commission

Part of our role at the Liverpool Irish Festival is to support artists. Having been in touch since 2018, Maz O’Connor has performed as one of our ‘Visible Women’ (2019) and we are now supporting her venture into musical theatre composition.

Maz has found funding to work with a writer on an incredible project, close to our hearts, so we are helping push the call. This is a paid commission, which could lead to book publications and stage shows; so, if you have an interest in working collaboratively, with a brilliant talent, we recommend reading on.

For reference, you can read Maz’s essay Chosen Daughter on page 24 of last year’s Festival newspaper, here.

Wanted: Theatre writer (ideally Irish/Irish heritage and female) for musical theatre commission

Fee: £1800 all-inclusive fee, funded by the EFDSS Creative Bursary Scheme

Project: Musical theatre piece based on the true life and death of Bridget Cleary; killed by her husband, and family, in Tipperary (1895) on suspicion of being a faery changeling (read more…).

Musician and composer Maz O’Connor has written songs and music for the piece, combining Irish traditional music and modern musical theatre styles. See more below.

Commission requirement: This commission –a composer collaboration- will bring together the piece’s performance narrative and develop the first hour of performance (including songs).

The heart of the piece centres on the music: Bridget’s world is a musical one. Maz will work with a writer who will respond to and build on what is created through the music. It requires someone who is excited about collaborating closely with a composer to create a holistic piece of theatre. However, the individual should possess their own artistic voice and use it to help shape the story, sensitively, to be the best it can be.

Maz is flexible about the logistics, but expects a Zoom/Skype start-point and –depending on time-spans- some face-to-face meetings. The successful applicant will be

  • enthusiastic about a close collaboration and peer appraisal (giving/receiving)
  • interested in the source material and Irish connectivity, possibly having Irish heritage of their own
  • keen to explore female roles, with an understanding of inclusive feminism
  • comfortable taking the initiative and suggesting new ideas
  • confident in script-developing alone
  • experienced enough to present their ideas in an industry specific and professional manner.

Progress: Maz has written the first draft of the music. A group of musicians and actor/singers workshopped this (Snape Maltings Music residency, Dec 2019). A 30min video and audio recording of the informal showing of this residency is available to those interested in applying.

Plans and opportunities:

  • A one-week R&D residency at Cecil Sharp House end of Aug 2020, Coronavirus permitting
  • Work-in-progress showing at Snape Malting Music’s Festival of the New (Sept 2020, format TBC)
  • Liverpool Irish Festival support (ongoing) and display (Oct 2020), as appropriate given piece development, timelines and Covid-19 public health guidance
  • Potential for The Finborough Theatre (London) production
  • Arts Council England funding application (2021) to
    • complete written piece (preferably to continue from this commission)
    • work on full stage-production (late 2021/early 2022).

Further Information: A private link to the recording of the music and a video introduction from Maz can be emailed to interested applicants. Email [email protected].

Application: Please send a cover letter and a CV, complete with an example of your writing to: [email protected]  by midnight (BST) Sun 31 May 2020. Shortlisted applicants will be offered a (chemistry test) Zoom/Skype interview in June, with a view to the collaboration starting Mon 6 Jul 2020.

The Commission for Victims and Survivors strategy survey

Since the resitting of Stormont, work has begun moving on areas of Northern Irish politics that may have seemed dormant. Prior to Covid-19, the Festival had begun discussions with the Commission for Victims and Survivors (or CVS), about their work and the Forum they hold, to discuss the legacy of The Troubles and the services that are available for those affected. We were planning events and public discussions; the CVS showed particular interest in our work on dual-heritage Irish lives and the focus we took on In:Visible Women.

The Festival is aware that it is not only people on the island of Ireland that were (or remain) affected by the Troubles. We feel it is important to share details of the Commission’s work and services, but also opportunities that can shape their work. We intend to work with the CVS in coming years, to consider how it identifies with and shapes Irish lives, at home and in diaspora communities, hence our involvement now.

The following is a statement from the Commissioner, Judith Thompson, about the work the CVS is doing, asking for survey contributions –from you- to help shape the strategy of the Commission in future. Please do read the statement.

As the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors, I am looking at how we can better support the many thousands of people who have been impacted by 40 years of the conflict in Northern Ireland. This could be you or someone you know. 1 in 3 people in Northern Ireland have suffered harm as a direct result of the Troubles. The likelihood is, they are a part of your organisation and what you do will already impact them. We all have a part to play – to build a better future.  I would be very grateful if you could take some time to complete this survey and share your thoughts.

You can complete this survey online, here.
You can also download a paper copy, here. If you have friends who are not online, but this would useful to, we encourage you to share.

Accurate, incisive and informed views and experiences from Groups, Individuals, Families and Friends is essential to mapping out how we make that future work for everyone. This survey will provide vital evidence to help us shape the roadmap to the future. I can assure you that what you share will help other people. The results of this survey will influence the advice I will give to government on what is the best way forward in a new Strategy to deliver services and support to victims and survivors today and in the future.

If you have any questions or would like further information on this survey, the Commission’s Research and Policy Officer, Leah McDonnell will be happy to help you.  Leah can be contacted by emailing [email protected] or by telephone on +44 (0) 28 9031 1000.

Your voice coupled with our learning from the past 10 years will provide government the expert knowledge of the road left to travel. Together we are working towards a common goal: a future that offers peace for all. Thank you for your interest and support and I look forward to your response. Yours sincerely,

Judith Thompson
Commissioner

Commission for Victims and Survivors
4th Floor, Equality House
7-9 Shaftesbury Square, Belfast BT2 7DP
(t): 028 9031 1000
(e): [email protected]
(w): www.cvsni.org

Feature image pixabay.com StartupStockPhotos

Culture Unconfined – programme announcements

University of Liverpool and the Institute of Irish Studies have today announced five-day programme of cultural events. Commencing Mon 11 May, the programme focusses on film, drama, music and poetry.

To read the full news piece, click here. You can also find the programme, here.

This is our programme overview, complete with LIF‘s recommended highlights (*). Use the links to navigate direct to the events as they are published:

Mon 11 May 2020

Tues 12 May 2020

Wed 13 May 2020

Thurs 14 May

Fri 15 May 2020

We hope this gives you the arts and culture nourishment you need during lockdown and look forward to sharing LIF’s events in the not too distant future.

CARA – a united response to Covid-19

Liverpool Irish Festival, in partnership with Irish community groups in the North West, has launched an important new programme named CARA to support our communities to stay safe, well and connected through Covid-19. Our partners include: Brian Boru Club, Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, GAA (John Mitchels and Wolfe Tones), Institute of Irish Studies (University of Liverpool), Irish Community Care, Irish Community Care Manchester, Liverpool Irish Centre, Mersey Harps and Shenanigans. CARA is also delighted to announce that it has recently been joined by Conradh Na Gaeilge (Nov 2020).

There are many members of our communities who may need a helping hand or a listening ear to get through the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of us are older or in poor health; many of us live alone far from family and friends. We need your help.

If you would like to get involved as a volunteer (this might mean picking up the phone for a chat or picking up groceries or a prescription) please complete this short form (click link).

If you know someone who is isolated (or likely to need a bit more support during the coming months), please help spread the word to them or fill in this short form and we will take it from there (click link). Alternatively you can call 0151 237 3987 for further information

We thank you for your support. Please promote CARA – as widely as possible in our communities – to ensure we let people know that there is help available during this challenging time.

Watch a short video about the programme here.

October article:

In October, we included an article about CARA in our Fetsival Newspaper. You can see the #LIF2020LongRead here.

10 June 2020 update:

“CARA volunteers are now delivering shopping for 30 people and providing regular ‘catch up and craic’ calls to another 30 people. The digital inclusion programme is developing well.  Mary whose cataract operation was postponed due to Covid 19, so couldn’t see the TV is absolutely delighted to have a large text Kindle supplied by CARA with a whole range of cultural programmes to enjoy; James recently diagnosed with cancer is connecting with family back home through Facetime and Zoom; Josephine has been talked through the use of Facebook and is delighted with being able to connect with family and friends; simple solutions that are making all the difference. We have also been able to provide activity packs (cultural material, daily diaries, cards and postage to write to family) for people in prison who are on ‘double’ lockdown.

[Week commencing 8 June] we will publish the first edition of CARA Newsletter which promises to be an excellent read! Thanks to everyone for your contributions to date. Apologies we are unable to include every article in the first edition, they will feature in next edition (early July). And keep the information coming……..including stories, poems, pictures, remembrances etc”.

30 April 2020 update:

So far, CARA have recruited 60+ volunteers and supported 10 people with regular shopping and other practical tasks; an amazing achievement in a very short period of time. Next week, the service is set to connect people using our telephone befriending service, where volunteers will have regular chats to people who have very little social contact, providing a listening ear, craic and a focus for the day.  Please promote CARA widely; we want as many people who are isolated in our communities to hear about the project and connect with our volunteers.

We are very aware of the power of technology and the key role it plays in connecting people, even more so during Covid-19, and are acutely aware that many of our people have no access to IT or the internet. For many, this renders fantastic online programmes, activities and connections inaccessible. We are looking at ways to address this, including a monthly printed and posted CARA newsletter and exploring how we can get people more digitally included.

We were extremely pleased to see CARA featured in The Irish Post. You can read the article here.