Claddagh Oral History Project 2020
Projects & Publications
Claddagh Oral History Project 2020
Celebrating our Heritage
The Claddagh Oral History project was initiated during the COVID-19 pandemic 2020. It brought people together safely, at a time when they were at risk of more isolation and loneliness than ever before, to build connection between members of the Irish community in WA and celebrate and preserve our shared heritage. We have collated edited extracts from all the project interviews in our book From Home to Home: Oral Histories of Irish Seniors in Western Australia. Read the book online or download a copy of the book. We have also serialised the chapters of the book in the Irish Scene, a magazine for the Irish community in Western Australia.
The full collection of interview audio and transcripts was lodged with the State Library of Western Australia (SLWA) and is housed in the SLWA Migration Voices Archive which is part of the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Programme. You can browse the collection here.
.
Eleven Irish seniors gifted us with their stories of migration and we are delighted to share them with the Irish community in Australia, the Irish diaspora around the world, our friends and family in Ireland and anyone else who is interested in the history of Irish migration. Colm Brophy T.D., Minister of State for Overseas Development Aid and Diaspora, commended the Claddagh Association for this project and Irish Ambassador to Australia Breandán Ó Caollaí, congratulated all those who were involved in bringing these very important personal stories to life.
Claddagh are so appreciative of the seniors and volunteers who committed to this oral history project and carried it out so well. We wish to thank our seniors who opened their homes and lives to us and shared details about their migration journey. And we wish to thank our volunteers who committed significant time attending training, conducting interviews and helping with the extremely time consuming transcription. Without our seniors and volunteers we could not have completed this project.
Our grateful thanks to the Government of Ireland’s ESP programme, major funder of the Claddagh Oral History Project. Thanks also go to the Australian Irish Heritage Association for part funding the printing of the publication.