Barney Devine On Location
In the field
The Mellon Centre for Migration Studies Ulster American Folk Park recently hosted the Twenty-third Annual Lecture ‘Notes from the Field : Visits to known and unknown places’ on Saturday 22nd February 2025.
Hosted by Barney Devine, Barney explored familiar landscapes and drew attention to forgotten places with surprising stories.
Drawing on the writings of Tim Robinson, Henry Glassie and William Heat Least Moon, Barney presented an intriguing and critical case for a popular re-attachment to our built and archaeological heritage and the landscapes around us from which we have become increasingly alienated.
This autumn school took place on Saturday, 2nd November 2024 and focused on the influence of two Tyrone writers, William Carleton (1704 – 1869) and John Montague (1929 – 2016). Though they lived almost two hundred years apart, they portrayed rural life in a very profound way.
John Montague (1929 −2016) was one of the best-known Irish contemporary poets. In 1998 he became the first occupant of the Ireland Chair of Poetry. Born in the United States, life in New York was difficult during the Great Depression so John and his two brothers were shipped back to Ireland in 1933, the two eldest to their maternal grandmother’s house in Fintona, County Tyrone, where they had been born, but John was sent to his father’s ancestral home at Garvaghey then maintained by two spinster aunts, Brigid and Freda, who welcomed the boy of four.
Montague’s poems chart boyhood, schooldays, love and relationships. Family and personal history and Ireland’s history are also prominent themes in his poetry. Through presentations and drama this event stimulated reflection on the themes of landscape, memory and exile.
The MCMS is grateful for the kind donation of John Montague’s travel trunk which will form part of an impactful display in the near future
Contributions were by Dr. Paddy Fitzgerald, Dr. Liam Campbell and Liam Foley.
The Mellon Centre For Migration Studies was grateful to collaborate with local authority bodies -PSNI and Education Authority, in the delivery of a series of workshops at the centre.
The visit focused on how an understanding of migration and its causes can foster good relations within Northern Ireland mirroring the work of MCMS in “Exploring the Migrant in Everyone”
The Production crew of the ever popular ‘Mahon’s Way’ paid a visit to the Ulster American Folk Park and the Mellon Centre for Migration Studies, recording material for a programme that was broadcast on Friday 1st November at 9pm on UTV. The Episode featured ‘some “Bad Bridgets” who went astray in the States’
https://www.facebook.com/story.php/?story_fbid=1070029161799281&id=100063766225472&_rdr
October 2024 saw a major archaeological dig taking place within the Ulster American Folk Park. Facilitated by Queen’s University Centre for Community Archaeology and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, members of the public, schools and community groups were invited to take part.
The Mellon Centre for Migration Studies at the Ulster American Folk Park proudly hosted the XXIV Ulster American Heritage Symposium “The Question How” 19th- 22nd June 2024.
CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW to view a video record of the Symposium.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka0kwKcjwJk&list=PLfvrWKuwaqfluaUt4-IXCM8TfG9mYIzU7
Bad Bridget Book Club based on the book on Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women by Drs Elaine Farrel and Leanne Mc Cormick. This five week programme held in the centre on Monday nights has been running with the Good Relations Office of Fermanagh and Omagh District Council looking at the lives of emigrant woman in the 19th and early 20th centuries and exploring in particular, themes of empathy and loss.
Aughabrack Faces and Places Project with the Rural Community Network and National Lottery Heritage Fund through local photographs and other archive material explored local heritage and migrations stories.
Solas Centre Bready and Ulster Scots NW Network had a full day of lectures and visits to the MCMS and UAFP exploring migration and the emigrant in us all.
The Streamkeepers Project – Working with the Loughs Agency as part of a larger Stream Keepers project, we delivered some ten workshops on the themes of migration, bridges and routes. These are very well attended and raise our local profile. It is also a good income stream. The areas covered recently were Drumahoe, Park, Plumbridge, Strabane, Culmore, Newtownstewart, Derry and Eglinton.
The Rural Community Network has brought various local heritage groups to the centre over this term to advise them on the resources of MCMS.
Director Liam Campbell was invited to the National Famine Commemoration in Milford, Co Donegal hosted by Michael D Higgins, President of Ireland.
The Launch of the Rathlin Island Oral History Project was attended by the Director Liam Campbell who was involved in contributing to the published book
MCMS in conjunction with the Ulster Historical Foundation and the National Churches Trust hosted a day for communities from historic churches on the subjects of migration and built heritage with NMNI staff
QUB Liberal Arts, History and Sociology staff and students have been working with MCMS on a project about Ageing and Migration. Two lectures by MCMS staff were delivered to students on this subject and further work is in development.
Heritage from Home Libraries NI – Give it a Go Month – Staff are very involved in talks and workshops with Libraries NI with work on Thomas Mellon and Hughes Libraries NI
PRONI – Declaration of Independence launch with Dr Paul Mullan, National Lottery Heritage Fund and Joe Kennedy III, Special Envoy on Economic Affairs
Stimulating discussions on contested heritage at the Centre and the Ulster American Folk Park as part of Corrymeela’s Our Places, Our Pasts, Our Perspectives with Quatro Collective, Ulster University and many insightful heritage practitioners – great to be connected.
A day of connections, learning, sharing and joy at the Rural Community Network’s Rural Gathering at the Seamus Heaney HomePlace. Making new connections and sparking new ideas. It was fantastic to share so many wonderful rural heritage projects, stories and experiences.
Professor Malachy Ó Néill, Ulster University and Dr Liam Campbel, Mellon Centre for Migration Studies at the USA Consulate Belfast with Special Envoy on Economic Affairs, Joe Kennedy III
Exploring Omagh’s History Conference in partnership with Fermanagh and Omagh District Council has launched a programme with MCMS now being written into the council’s heritage plan as a key partner.
A partnership with PRONI and the Nerve Centre called CollabArchive was run over six weeks and this makes best use of the DIPPAM resources with a group of migrants exploring emigrant letters and making comparisons with their own lives and subsequently writing new letters and making podcasts.
The concept of migration has been adapted by the Education Authority to help enable the development of the new Strule Shared Campus and this is very challenging but exciting work with principals, governors, pupils and the wider community. This is a good example of the application of migration theory and narrative into solid and impactful practice
It is 40 years in June this year since Brian Mitchell took up the post as local history tutor at Derry Youth and Community Workshop and he has been involved in local history, family and emigration research in the wider Derry area ever since …
Ulster Architectural Heritage partner with the Mellon Centre for Migration Studies to empower individuals, communities and groups to Learn How To? Read, Record & Research Heritage.
This is a wide ranging lecture on the influence of rivers on the movement and settlement of peoples in this region and throughout the wider world. This walk and talk, appropriately situated on the banks of the Strule will explore how a river landscape connects us all to the oceans and beyond. Drawing on local literature this walk and talk will hopefully stimulate reflection on the migrant in all of us.
Fermanagh and Omagh District Council in partnership with the Mellon Centre for Migration Studies will host an Omagh Heritage Workshop in Strule Arts Centre, Omagh on Saturday 26 March 2022 from 9.30 am – 4 pm.
The free workshop will explore Omagh’s history and discuss its development through the years guided by historians and guest speakers.
In 2012 Ulster author Patricia Craig published A Twisted Root: Ancestral Entanglements in Ireland as part memoir, part family history. If you are interested in the twists and turns of family history and how it connects to the diverse strands of Ulster’s past this free, short five week course may be for you. Like a book club we meet each Monday evening (7-9) to discuss our progressive reading of the book and share our reflections. The course runs from 9 May to 6 June 2022. The venue for our meetings will be The Mellon Centre for Migration Studies at the Ulster American Folk Park. The final session will take the form of a study visit and details will be confirmed on 9 May.
The Mellon Centre for Migration Studies
2 Mellon Road
Omagh
County Tyrone
Northern Ireland
BT78 5QU
tel: 028 8225 6315
email: Liam.Campbell@librariesni.org.uk
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