On Mon 17th May in the Spotted Dog there was a special screening a screening of the first episode of the hard-hitting documentary The Forgotten Irish series, which concentrated on the stories of Irish immigrants who’d settled in Birmingham.
After the documentary, we showed some archived film and TV clips from the internet which related to the issues in The Forgotten Irish, which stimulated some pretty robust and interesting discussion. The clips we showed included:
- “Corpus Christi Celebrations. Procession of the Blessed Sacrament at Artane Industrial School” (1924, from British Pathe).
- “Great little lads”. Artane boys give a clever gymnastic display. (1928, Britsh Pathe)
- Irish protest march from Deritend to Victoria Square in Birmingham. (1969, MACE)
- Birmingham bombings – after effects (1974, MACE)
William Perrin interviewed a few people about the memories and stories they had to tell in reaction to the clips shown, which are the YouTube clips included in this post.
It was pretty powerful evening and people shared some amazing personal stories with us – thanks very much to everyone who came along.
By the way, I bumped into James (who featured in The Forgotten Irish) on Digbeth High Street last week and we had a little chat – you’ll be pleased to hear he’s settling into his new home at St Eugene’s well!
