Posts tagged "Notes"

BEYOND THESE ROOMS | Visitor Histories

January 22nd, 2019 Posted by Archive 0 comments on “BEYOND THESE ROOMS | Visitor Histories”

Bringing Complex Conflicted History Back to Life: One Story, Two Perspectives

My husband, Peter Connolly, was a carrier and a general dealer.  He was 39 years of age.  On Easter Friday evening at dusk he had gone over to Hickey’s to move two mirror glasses.  When the firing began apparently he could not return home, and I never saw him alive again.”

– Statement of Mrs Connolly, taken from A FRAGMENT OF 1916 HISTORY held at the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks. (REFERENCE NUMBER 35J 6/13)

Mrs Hughes told us that she had seen Connolly on the roofs of houses at the rear of her house, leading the rebels across the roofs.  I know Connolly to have been a sergeant in the National Volunteers, and Mrs Connolly told me that he gave the Irish volunteers 2 rifles during the Rebellion.”
– Statement of Police Sergeant O’Gorman, taken from COURTS OF ENQUIRY INTO THE ALLEGED SHOOTING OF CIVILIANS BY SOLDIERS held at The National Archive, Kew. (REFERENCE NUMBER WO. 35/67/3)

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Narrating Conflicted Histories

A core objective of BEYOND THESE ROOMS was to actively engage visitors into creating their own versions of this conflicted history.    The installation at Tate Exchange, Tate Liverpool, housed a large light table with multiple sentences taken from the following two governments’ enquiries conducted following the North King Street massacre:

  • A FRAGMENT OF 1916 HISTORY held at the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin.
  • COURTS OF ENQUIRY INTO THE ALLEGED SHOOTING OF CIVILIANS BY SOLDIERS held at the National Archive, Kew, London

Visitors were given the following instructions

  • ASSEMBLE the sentences and create your own narrative of the incident.
  • ARCHIVE your statement by pressing the keypad located in the middle of the lightbox table – it will be uploaded to theserooms.ie

We have been amazed by the response – thank you so much to all those who participated!

NOTE: these images are raw files uploaded from the light table at Tate Exchange and have not been altered in any way – to see the text clearly click to magnify.

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The Cast respond to the testimonies

July 18th, 2016 Posted by Notes 0 comments on “The Cast respond to the testimonies”

Burst

Hands up

Searching

Ordered

Took

Fallen

Broke

Lying

Wash

Dead

These are just a few words taken from the testimony of Sally Hughes ( wife of Micheal Hughes). Micheal was murdered in North King street by the South Staffordshire regiment. In looking into the testimonies off all these men who were brutally killed it asks the question of why don’t we know about this?

Why now one hundred years on have we still not got the full truth and statements that were recorded. Will we ever know what really happened to those men and why it was done to them when they had nothing to do with the Volunteers.

Why Christopher Hickey a 16 year old boy was butchered to death. 31 pages, thats all we have. Maybe its all will ever have.

CRAIG CONNOLLY

The OPEN CALL!

July 18th, 2016 Posted by Notes 0 comments on “The OPEN CALL!”

blog-02In March 2015, The Arts Council of Ireland issued an OPEN CALL to the Irish imagination for ambitious projects to commemorate the Centenary of the Easter Rising. Selected by an independent, international jury, a total of €1 million was made available for this initiative.

In the press coverage that followed – ANU’s Pals, was cited as an example of how the arts could capture the public imagination in dealing with painful memories from the past (https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/arts-council-to-provide-1m-funding-to-mark-the-centenary-of-the-easter-rising-1.2129592) – who would have thought then…

David Bolger and Louise Lowe had been talking for a while about coming together to create a work that blurred traditional artform boundaries and news of this open call led David, Louise. Owen, Lynnette, Matt and myself to come together in Collins Barracks and discuss the details of making an application within the one month window.

The resulting submission focussed on collaboration, bringing together three artists to create a truly interdisciplinary performance work, which took as its starting point the 38 female testimonies of the North King Street massacre. Our application summary read: This exciting collaboration positions CoisCéim and ANU at the forefront of interdisciplinary practice. THESE ROOMS will reaffirm the role of art in negotiating history and produce a vital, real-time work that looks at the 1916 rebellion not through the typical eyes of the heroes but through the civilians who became involved when the uninvited rising invaded their homes with devastating consequences

We pressed send on the 15th April 2015 and thought little more about it. The OPEN CALL was intensely competitive – 258 applications were received.

The selection process was two phase. A shortlisted was drawn up in June and we were invited to elaborate on our submission in terms of creative and production detail. Special thanks for their support at this stage goes to our partners at Collins Barracks, National Museum of Ireland and National Archives of Ireland. Phase 2 was submitted in July. We had no idea how many people were on the shortlist, and thought – wow – brilliant to get this far.

The surprise, delight and incredulity following Liz Meaney’s phone call to David Bolger when told that the application had been successful was matched with more than a little apprehension. What an opportunity!

…and now we have to do it!

Soon after the Dublin Theatre Festival came on board as the premiere presentation partner for the live performance element, cementing the dates.

Now at the time of writing, it’s one year on – creative development workshops have taken place, casting is complete, 14-18 NOW is a co-commissioner of the work, FLAC (Free Legal Advice Centres) are generously allowing us to use their building as the site for all aspects of the project, and we are ready for the start of rehearsals on 15 August to make THESE ROOMS.