Archive of Group's Activities

Red Hand of O’Gara

The June Event of the Birmingham Irish Heritage Group carried a title which did not do justice to the depth of the presentation given by Alan Bairner PhD. The subject “Studying Irish Sport” whilst interesting in it’s self to many, revealed much about the underlying clash of identity in North East Ireland.

  Alan demonstrated much authority on the subject having   spent many years there engaged in field research and lecturing. Anybody who missed this event lost the opportunity to hear a very professional speaker, who in addition had the talent to engage with the crowd. After a prolonged session of interesting questions and contributions from the floor, a halt had to be called as we had run out of time. However we do hope to have Alan back in the not to distant future.

 Birmingham Irish Heritage events commence at 7 pm on the first Wednesday of each month, but this was the first to be held in a palatial listed building. Not just any listed building, but one that had been visited over a century ago, by no less a personage than Princess Helena Christian of Schleswig- Holstein. Now I would hazard a guess that Schleswig-Holstein is not a name that rings a bell with many of our readers, even those who are supporters of the Heritage Group and I readily forgive them for that.

 Even if it did ring a bell at one time and they had forgotten, they are in good company. Lord Palmerston the British Politian who held high office for much of the nineteenth century, is on record as having said about the mind numbing complexities of the problem "Only three people understood the Schleswig-Holstein Question.

The first was Albert, the Prince consort and he is dead 

The second is a German professor, and he is in an asylum

: and the third was myself — and I have forgotten it."

This answer did not do any harm to Lord Palmerston, for shortly afterwards he won an election. So there is hope for Gordon Brown, and indeed for the Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen, if either of them were to comment in relation to the financial meltdown that  there were only three men who had the answer to it and

Regrettably the first man was dead.                                                                                        The second man has become quite mad.                                                                             And the third is myself-and I have forgotten it.

However such extraordinary answers would not cut any ice with the crowd at the Heritage Group Event, if their keen questioning of this months speaker was any guide. There were questions and contributions from John MacIntyre, Patricia Naylon, Charlie Neylon, John Costello and several others whose names are regrettably unknown to me. They were several contributions from the crowd on rugby player O’Gara meeting Queen Elizabeth as part of the Lions Team.

 Each received a thorough reply from Alan based on his long experience seeing first hand the feelings generated by the separate sports of opposing communities in the six counties. The debate would have gone on for much longer had we not run out of time, but likely it continued in the well appointed lounge afterwards. Those who missed this exciting event can watch it on film, on the internet at www.digbeth.org  thanks to the support of the operator of the Digbeth is Good Blog, Nickey Getgood. Type Irish Heritage into the search box half way down the screen on the right hand side and click GO.

 Regarding the headline of this report, the picture shows that O’Gara’s hands were in his pockets and the red was on the faces of the others, but much too long for a headline. Anyway why spoil a snappy headline, with a pedantic adherence to trivial facts.  Is O’Gara on his way to joining the hate figure of the British media “Hand of God” Diego Maradona.

Michael Walsh

27th June 2009.

News Report of May 2009 Events

Monuments to Unsung Generations

 An extra dramatic act was provided by the Gods (in case we have any ancient Greeks amongst our readers) at the opening of the Birmingham Irish Heritage Group Event on Wednesday 6th of May 2009.  IT equipment necessary to show the film was affected by “gremlins” or if you prefer “fairies”, and just when the two committee members involved, were after a long struggle about admit defeat a man charged to the rescue from a distant horizon.

 Well! Actually it was a man named Jackie who came forward from the rear of the crowd and modestly offered his help, and got the film started. Believe it or not, it was his first visit to a Heritage Group Event always held at 7pm on First Wednesday of each month, talk about divine intervention.  A famous quotation is appropriate “Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man”.

If you have heard a rumour that the committee staged all this for dramatic affect, and that the man who came to the rescue was an actor who been had hidden away, it is untrue. In fact he is a student of architecture. However it worked just as well, providing a drama in which good triumphed over evil, i.e. the IT bad spirits defeated by divine intervention.

Then came the very moving film “An Bothar Fada” (The Long Road), an historic record of two generations from Ireland who migrated to Britain from the forties on. An appropriate name for the story of the men who toiled on many long roads, and the women who worked  the buses on endless city streets, and others who worked long nightshifts nursing the sick in the NHS.

 They toiled and struggled to make a home, as strangers in a strange land. John Kane a long standing supporter of the Heritage Group gave a moving contribution from the floor of how he had toiled under such harsh conditions. Mary Pearson another well known supporter of the Heritage Group,   voiced the need for a film to celebrate the contribution of the Irish in building up  British Trade Unions, represented well above their numbers at all levels of leadership.

 Peter mulligan coming all the way from Northampton to present the film, spoke with great determination on how the young Irish, put much into building up the economy of the host community, and because they were young and fit took very little out, a fact often forgotten.  Motorways and other long roads of Britain are monuments to the unsung generations of Irish who built them.

 They are however monuments without inscriptions to recognise their work, the only inscription being to Government Ministers with unsoiled hands. At least they are  remembered in this film, and other records of heritage brought to all by the Birmingham Irish Heritage Group. Now bringing you a little known almost secret aspect of Irish Heritage at 7pm on Wednesday 3rd of June 2009 at the Irish Club, High Street, Digbeth, Birmingham. All Welcome, no charge, refreshments.

Michael Walsh

8-5-2009

News Report of April 2009 Event. 

Chief O’Neill and Pat O’Neill

A tenuous combination brought together by the talent of Vince Jordan and South Birmingham Comhaltas at the Birmingham Irish Heritage Group Event, upstairs at the Irish Club on the first Wednesday in April.

 As recounted by Vince, Chief O’Neill was not as might be expected a Chieftain of the O’Neills of Ulster, but a Chief of  Police in Chicago to whom Irish traditional musicians are indebted, for his magnificent collection of  traditional music. Pat O’Neill is of course our own Pat a stalwart of Irish Community organisations in Birmingham over many years. Pat’s skills even extend to the playing of the bodhran much to the enjoyed by the large crowd attending this Heritage Event, also staged on the first Wednesday of every month.

Chief O’Neill not always a Police Chief, carried out his most valuable work on behalf Irish traditional music when he was a young patrolman. Whilst pounding a lonely beat in the early hours of the morning, he would hear the enchanting strains of traditional Irish music, coming from the window of some fellow exiles home. Moved by this, he then took the important step of locating the correct window, and when off duty in  plain clothes he would visit, to make friends, listen again and write down the music.

As these exiles came from all over Ireland bringing their part of Ireland with them, in the form of traditional music, over a lifetime he able to build up a priceless collection of tunes. When he reached the rank of Police Chief, and was able to afford it, he performed a final service to Irish heritage at home and abroad, by having his collections published. We were treated to an enjoyable and varied rendition of tunes and taste of Irish music from “down under“, Vince having just returned from a successful tour of Australia.

 About the only thing that could vie with such very enjoyable music, was a presentation of gifts to Mary Niblett, the long serving treasurer of the Heritage Group, who is returning to Ireland. It was acknowledged that she is the person who perhaps above all kept the Heritage Group solvent, and thus affords to bring speakers to over seventy events, during her period on the committee.

Mary’s successor as treasurer Kate MacManus and Anne Scott the event organiser, made a bright and vivacious presentation. The crowd, most of whom had been lucky enough to enjoy the fruits of Mary’s financial stewardship over the last seven years, spared no effort in their appreciative applause.  Next month will see Peter Mulligan come all the way from Northampton to unveil a series of surprises at the Heritage Group Event at 7pm on the first Wednesday in May upstairs at the Irish Club in Deritend.

Michael Walsh, 9/4/09

News Report of March 2009 Event.

Exotic Fruits and Ancestral Ghost’s