Cuimhne visits London Met’s Irish in Britain archive
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Zibiah Loakthar, our Cuimhne Coordinator writes:
Our Cuimhne team organised a group visit this October to the Archives of the Irish in Britain held at London Metropolitan University’s Calcutta House, Aldgate.
This was in response to all the interest our previous Cuimhne visit excited. Read a report here.
We were a group with diverse interests in visiting the space, some of us with a personal interest in what we might find there, some with connections to people whose photos and writing are already included in the Archives collections. Some of the group volunteered with Irish community organisations and were interested to find out how they might contribute their own material to the collections. Others had an interest in learning more about what life was like for the Irish in Britain in the past, some sought to be more informed in order to support conversations with Irish people now experiencing memory loss, some had a general interest in Irish community history and some came with academic research interests.
We ranged in age from seven months old to being in our 80s!
two of group standing by lifts
Photo: Hae–young and Chris going up to the archives; the building has lifts and has fully disabled access
Indeed the archives welcome everyone and are of growing interest to people from diverse communities based all over the world. Some of the material is digitised and can be browsed online here.
Dr Hae–young Yoon, Visiting Researcher at Queen Mary, University of London, joined us for her first visit to the Irish collections commenting, “Being from a Korean minority in Japan, a community that has experienced hard times, I am interested to learn about people and their stories. This is a wonderful place not just to look back on community history but to be encouraged and empowered.”
Tony Murray from the Irish archives, and his colleagues Peter Fisher and university librarian Cathy Phillpotts, warmly welcomed us to the collections and explained how they have been built up and what we might be able to find there. We all discussed how we might be able to help to gather more materials for the collections.
Tess shows scrapbook to archivist
Photo: Cuimhne Champion Tess McGuire, from the Council of Irish Counties, brought along a book of cuttings to show Tony Chris looks at archive materials
Photo: Cuimnhe Champion Chris O’Reilly, from East London Irish Pensioners talking with Tony about materials held in the archives
Browsing artefacts
Photo: Tina Bolger, Cuimhne Champion at Ashford Place and Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholar Vikki Brown browsing the collections
Visiting an archive can be a bit like entering a secret treasure cave. You never know quite what you will find and may leave with lots of new thoughts and a thirst to return on another visit!
“Thanks again for the opportunity to visit…it certainly was interesting… and has given me much to think about”. Anne Roache
Sometimes you come across things quite unexpectedly that may conjure back from the past personal memories to treasure.
Among our group that afternoon, we made some wonderful discoveries. Anne Marie Jervis, Cuimhne Champion writes:
“My eldest daughter and I thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the Archive of the Irish in Britain at London Met Uni– many thanks for organising this. A huge thanks to Tony Murray for his informative talk; his passion for the subject certainly came across. It is great that there are people like him to ensure that our history is recorded for future generations.
“I was certainly overcome with emotion to see a photo of my dad with the hurling team that he was involved with managing for over 20 years. If there was anyone to capture the Irish in London’s love for hurling in that era, it was my dad, Thomas Maguire. Hurling was his absolute passion. To have my daughter and grandson there and our photo of four generations was the icing on the cake; a day neither my daughter or I will forget.
“I will be in touch for a copy of the photograph; in fact, Tony knows the photographer. The coincidences just kept happening! As for my seven month old grandson having to be settled just by the Trade Union archive shelf of the year his mum worked at the Musicians’ Union – well that was also unbelievable!”
Our trip prompted an exciting discovery about some materials we have been looking after for in our own Irish in Britain office. To find out more please watch this space!