Ultan Cowley

Tuesday, 8 April 2014

Govt seeks expressions of interest to develop National Diaspora Centre

Monday 3rd March 2014

The Government is seeking expressions of interest from potential partners to develop and operate a National Diaspora Centre.

Following a discussion at Cabinet earlier this week, Fáilte Ireland will now make a call for expressions of interest from interested parties in order to establish whether a suitable project and partner can be found.

Any party interested in acquiring The Cowley Collection - the largest existing archive on the Irish in British Construction, as the core element in their proposal should make contact with me without delay.

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The story so far...

'Paddy and the Big Ditch: Irish Labour on the Manchester Ship Canal, 1887-1893, was commissioned by the Irish World Heritage Centre, Manchester, in 1993 to mark the first centenary of the opening of the Ship Canal.

It was followed by The Men who built Britain: A History of the Irish Navvy, in 2001. This book was researched in Britain over three years, from 1994 to 1997, and writen over the following two years in Ireland. I amassed over sixty hours' of recorded interviews with labourers, tradesmen, middle management and family members. The black and white illustrations, many never previously published, were collected from public archives, company records, and private individuals.

It puts the history of Irish male migrant labour in Britain's contruction industry in the 19th and 20th centuries in the contexts of Irish emigratiion and British civil engineering, in the written histories of which the navvy had been no more than a footnote.

I still collect first-hand accounts of that way of life on an on-going basis and, as the older veterans get fewer, men from the 'Eighties exodus come into greater prominence and a new chapter takes shape.

At the same time musician Joe Giltrap and I continue to tour our Show, The Craic was good in Cricklewood: Songs & Stories of the men who built Britain.

This features songs and poems of the navvy life, together with first-hand accounts of life on site and in the dancehalls, pubs, and bed-sits of Camden Town, Cricklewood, and elsewhere.

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Tuesday, 8 April 2014

Govt seeks expressions of interest to develop National Diaspora Centre

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