Dundalk 1916 Project looking for volunteers

Paul Hayes of An Táin Arts Centre

With 2016 not far away, we can expect to see many centenary projects gearing up and preparing for performances and events to mark the Centenary of the Easter Rising. Among them is a new initiative from An Táin Arts Centre in Dundalk which will see a new piece of theatre devised by participants in a process which will start next Wednesday night and culminate with performances in An Táín at Easter next year.

Managing Director, Paul Hayes explains: “We’re conscious that the Town Hall, where An Táin is based, is a building which has a special resonance with the events of 1916 in Dundalk. It was here that Pádraig Pearse was to have addressed an audience around the time of the Rising, and it was here that Dundalk Urban District Council discussed the events in Dublin and Dundalk at their subsequent meeting. With that in mind, An Táin Arts Centre is inviting people from the town and throughout Louth to work with us in devising a new way of looking and recounting what happened in Dundalk nearly 100 years ago.”

The genesis of the initiative was meeting between County Arts Officer, Brian Harten, Paul Hayes from An Táin Arts Centre, and Declan Mallon, Upstate Theatre project, based in Drogheda. At that meeting, it was decided to create a new recounting of the events which took place in Dundalk in 1916. Upstate Theatre Project has long experience of working with communities to develop film and drama productions, where the stories, and the way of telling those stories, are shaped by the community participants themselves.

As Declan Mallon says: “We don’t do re-enactments. What we aim to do is to unearth people’s stories, and present these in new and innovative ways.”

Declan Mallon and Paul Hayes were behind the acclaimed Ship Street Revisited, which saw a dilapidated street in Drogheda transformed into an outside stage for stories and performances informed by the memories of past residents of the street. Another of Upstate Theatre’s productions, The Far Side, was described by The Irish Times as “hilarious and heartbreaking, simple and surreal.” And so the people behind these productions are behind the new initiative for An Táin Arts Centre.

“We’re inviting people to join us in the Arts Centre in Crowe Street on Wednesday October 7^th at 7pm”, says County Arts Officer, Brian Harten.

“What will eventually be presented in April will be informed, to a large extent, by the views, stories and questions of the people who come along. If you can sing or act, great. If not, but are interested in 1916 in Dundalk, come along anyway. We want people to be involved and to help mould a re-telling of a momentous event in Irish history”

New look Louth Hidden History app launched

A screenshot from the Louth Hidden History app

A new look and updated Louth Hidden History App has been unveiled at the County Museum in Dundalk this morning, this time 
around featuring a collaboration with Louth-based Upstate Theatre Project.

The free app which was first launched in 2012 is an important tool for tourists visiting the area as well as those based locally who are keen on learning more about the history of the region.

The County Museum has joined forces with the Upstate Theatre Project and the groups latest project ECHOES: A Community Research Project Commemorating 1912-1922.

Upstate Theatre Project was supported in 2014 by the European Union’s PEACE III Programme in creating a large community action research project in Louth which sought to empower individuals, young and old, to research their own personal background and try to find out where their own ancestors may have been during the commemorative decade of 1912 to 1922.

Now, in association with Louth County Museum, Upstate Theatre Project is delighted to present the completed app developed with the artists, historians and team of 274 community researchers.

The launch was attended with Museum Curator Brian Walsh alongside Upstate’s Declan Mallon, Maura Mullen, Cait Murphy, Sandra Gough and Pat Kerley, and Graham O’Rourke of MOR Solutions uploading the first four narrated histories.

The four personal histories are only the beginning of what is to be a 
larger archive with Upstate Theatre Project hoping to build upon this foundation and, together with new and existing community researchers across Louth, continue to develop and add to the project in the coming years of this significant commemorative decade.

Speaking at the launch, Museum Curator, Brian Walsh said: “Louth Hidden History was a completely new innovation when we launched it in 2012 and I am thrilled that with the Upstate Theatre Project it is taken a new direction.”

Also speaking at the launch Declan Mallon said: “History is often, and necessarily, mediated to us. Someone writes that history, choosing what we need to know and what we don’t. Only through personal intervention can we prevent our individual histories being lost. But where do we start?

“What happened in Ireland between 1912 and 1922 happened in a global context, a turbulent time in human history. Through this project Upstate Theatre Project hopes to begin to uncover this period of commemoration and explore the humanity of our shared histories.”

The Louth Hidden History appis now available FREE at the Apple App Store.