Exhibition reflecting 50 years of movement between the island of Ireland and Britain to open in NI for first time this summer

A major exhibition exploring five decades of movement between people from the island of Ireland and Britain, and their enduring connection to both places, is coming to Belfast for the first time this summer.

Look Back to Look Forward celebrates the lives, resilience, and legacies of people from across the island of Ireland who moved to live in Britain over the last five decades, as well as the experiences of second-generation Irish families. It has been created by Irish in Britain, the national membership body for Irish community organisations in Britain, as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations.

The acclaimed exhibition was seen by over 120,000 visitors while in Dublin and has toured in cities across Britain.

It is being hosted in Belfast by Queen’s University as part of its Fleadh Cheoil na héireann Fringe programme. Running from 28th July to 16th August in the Elmwood Hall, viewing is available between 11 am and 4 pm each day, and admission is free.

Drawing on emotive oral histories, archival material, photography, film, and audio recordings, it documents people’s different experiences of leaving home behind, of setting up life in a new place, community activism, work, and cultural identity.

Well-known faces
Several well-known faces have contributed to the exhibition, including actors Adrian Dunbar, Ardal O’Hanlon, and Jamie Beamish, who read moving excerpts from transcripts of interviews with Irish labourers who lived in Arlington House in London in the 90s.  Other well-known names featured include actors and presenters Siobhán McSweeney and Aisling Bea, broadcaster Terry Christian, Siobhan Fahy from Bananarama and Shakespears Sister, musician Jah Wobble, and poet Laurie Bolger, who wrote a specially commissioned poem inspired by the project.

NI connections
Of the more than 50 personal testimonies featured in the exhibition, several are from people from Northern Ireland or with a strong connection to it.

They include Bangor-born William Foote, now director of the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith, London; Portstewart-born actor Claire Hagan, who reflects on growing up as a lesbian in a Protestant community in Portstewart before moving in 1989 to build a new life in Leicester, where she trained as a nurse before pursuing a successful acting career; Castlewellan native Fr Gerry McFlynn, who speaks about his decades supporting Irish prisoners in England and Wales through the Irish Chaplaincy; Geoff Bell, the Belfast-born, now London-based, writer and socialist political activist; Nadine Finch, former barrister, Upper Tribunal Judge, and now academic; and Alice Delahunty from Roslea, Co. Fermanagh, who recalls how finding a new community in Dance Halls across England was so important for her and her friends. Also featuring are two women from Derry City - Dr Maev McDaid, a harpist and researcher at the University of Sheffield, who speaks about her community activism and how central Irish music is to her identity and Hilda McCafferty, who moved to London in the 1970s and worked in education and championed Irish studies in schools when elected to the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA).

Speaking ahead of the exhibition’s launch at Queen’s, Brian Dalton, CEO of Irish in Britain, said: "Irish in Britain is really pleased to be bringing our exhibition to Belfast for the first time, as the stories that feature belong to everyone from our island who's stepped off a boat, train or plane to Britain, and to their children and grandchildren. Many of the stories featured have connections to Northern Ireland, and so we’re delighted that Queen’s is hosting the exhibition and enabling us to bring it to Belfast at a time when so many visitors are coming to the city for the Fleadh and will have an opportunity to experience it.

“Movement between our island and Britain has connected families, communities, the arts, and workplaces for generations, and this exhibition brings those connections to life in a way that powerfully reflects the many different reasons for those journeys, the experiences behind them, and the significant contribution they have made, and continue to make, in Britain today.

“This project is a window through which others can see us and understand us. It is inspired by our work with member organisations right across Britain over the last five decades. We want to acknowledge the stories of resilience, innovation, activism and kinship that our member organisations bear witness to every day. We live in a very different world today than that of the past five decades, and so it has been a privilege to enable so many people to tell their very personal stories and to safeguard them, as otherwise they may have been lost to us all.”

Ahead of welcoming the exhibition to Queen’s, Joan Parsons, Head of Culture and Arts at the University, said: “We are delighted to welcome the Look Back to Look Forward exhibition to Queen’s. This important history of Irish culture and life in Britain will connect with so many people in Belfast, and we look forward to meeting all the visitors throughout the exhibition.  As the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann welcomes visitors from across the world to Belfast, we are proud to host this exhibition for its first showing in NI.”

Look Back to Look Forward was developed using testimony gathered by more than 50 volunteers from communities across Britain and was funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Irish in Britain is also building an inclusive archive reflecting the experiences of groups whose voices have often been underrepresented, including LGBTQ+ people, Travellers, people affected by the legacy of Irish residential institutions and those from mixed-heritage Irish backgrounds.

All of the oral histories collected through the project are now deposited for permanent public access in the Archive of the Irish in Britain at London Metropolitan University.

For those who cannot make it to the exhibition in person, Irish in Britain has created an online version of the exhibition which can be viewed at www.irishinbritain.org