Ultan Cowley

Saturday, 23 November 2013

Tune in tomorrow morning for more Voices of The Men Who Built Britain with John Bowman on RTE Radio 1 http://bit.ly/1i1un4v

In this week's show, Ultan will be accompanying the excerpts from his CD material.
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/bowman-sunday-830/

Friday, 22 November 2013

Brilliant writing from Frank McNally in his Irishman's Diary Column in last Saturday's Irish Times. I couldn't have said it nearly so well. Click here to go to the article.

30 mins. of interview excerpts played on the John Bowman Show RTE Radio 1 http://bit.ly/1i1un4v

If you missed it last Sunday morning, have a listen back at http://bit.ly/1i1un4v to excerpts from my upcoming CD of interviews with The Men Who Built Britain!

Monday, 18 November 2013

Delighted to have had a selection of the interviews from my upcoming CD Voices of The Men Who Built Britain featured on the John Bowman Show on RTE Radio 1 yesterday. Tune in here to listen: http://bit.ly/HUA8At and listen in next Sunday to hear more. A warm thanks to all on the John Bowman Show for featuring this work.

A warm thanks to Aine Lawlor for having me on Marian Finucane's morning show on RTE Radio 1 last Saturday. It was a pleasure to discuss my upcoming CD of Voices of The Men Who Built Britain @Finucaneshow. If you missed it, you can listen back to it here: http://bit.ly/1bTBhBY

Delighted to have been featured in Frank McNally's column An Irishman's Diary in last Saturday's Irish Times @IrishTimes. http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/trench-warfare-1.1596376?page=1

Wednesday, 6 November 2013

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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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