Belfast Families In 1911: Late Victorian & Edwardian Belfast: A Multi-Media Resource

Tuesday 27 March 2007

Tuesday 27 March 2007

11.00am

Linen Hall Library- Belfast

Free

Event

Speakers: Martin Lynch, Professor Patrick Murphy of the Heritage Lottery Fund, Northern Ireland and Liam Kennedy, BelFam and Queen’s University, Belfast.

At 11.00am
On Tuesday 27 March 2007
Performance Area (room at the top)

Linen Hall Library, Belfast

Tea, coffee, fruits, scones

RSVP: n.khaoury@qub.ac.uk 9097 5352

BelFam: belfast family and community history www.belfastfamilyhistory.com

Further Information:

MARTIN LYNCH:
Martin Lynch’s most recent play is the acclaimed Holding Hands at Paschendale, premiered at the Lyric Theatre this autumn, on the theme of soldiers shot for alleged cowardice or desertion in World War 1. Twenty six of the men ‘shot at dawn’ were from Ireland; remarkably a third of these came from Belfast.

Using census documents, BelFam has traced the home background of two of the executed: Peter Sands of Abyssinia St, off the Falls, and James Templeton, Enfield St, off the Shankill.

BelFam will be presenting Martin with historical evidence on the social and family backgrounds from which these two men came, as a way of illustrating the wider value of the project on life in Belfast on the eve of the Great War.

One of the best windows on the lives, occupations and housing conditions of the people is through the census documents filled in by each and every household in the city on Sunday, 2 April 1911. These documents and related photographs form the core of the BelFam web site, which will also be unveiled at the launch.

The Heritage Lottery Fund, Northern Ireland, has kindly made available a grant of £122,000 to fund the project, as will be announced by Professor Patrick Murphy at the Linen Hall launch. This large grant is an indication of the importance attached by the Heritage Lottery Fund to the retrieval of the cultural heritage of the city of Belfast. BelFam is involved in a series of community workshops across the city, sharing ideas and information with local groups, and helping to promote local history.

Images of the original census forms, photographic scenes of Edwardian Belfast, as well as digital images of documents relating to the sentencing of the Belfast soldiers, will be projected onto the large screen in the Performance Area. These form a backdrop to the speakers and the conversation between Martin Lynch and Liam Kennedy, the director of the project.