Irish Cultural Centre Project Presentation Evening

On the evening of Thursday 3rd July, Year 9 students who took part in an intergenerational oral history project in collaboration with the Irish Cultural Centre, Hammersmith, celebrated the culmination of the project. The evening began with an exhibition and display of information about each of the six elders that took part and where interviewed, photographed and videoed by our students. 

The crowd gathered into the main hall where they were greeted by the Centre Manager William Foote and the Community Officer Siobhan Reynolds who told the story of the project and the vision behind it. This vision presented a sense of culture, community and enrichment between elderly people and the youth of today. 

Students then sang the beautiful 'Amazing Grace' with the ICC Elderly singing group accompanied by a harpist and guitarist. They then in their groups presented their creative responses to their elders as a response to what they had learned from them. They chose a quote which inspired them the most and used this to feed their creativity and imagination. The creative responses included re-enactments of famous encounters, poems, a photo collage and the re-writing of lyrics to two famous Irish songs, Dreams by the Cranberries and A Womans Heart by Eleanor Mc Evoy. Attached is a link to the souvenir booklet presented to each of the participants with some of the many creative responses from the students. Needless to say, there was not a dry eye in the crowd and these responses echoed such compassion and warmth from our students.

The evening ended with a screening of the documentary named 'The Gloaming' meaning shining/twinkling, which was Directed by Se Merry Doyle and Co-Produced by Siobhan Reynolds and Ms Mallon from Sacred Heart. The documentary featured each of the elders telling their stories of growing up in Ireland, their emigration to London and how their life has changed. One of the highlights from the documentary was when one of the elders, Justa Madden, spoke of applying to a teacher training college in Ireland, of which there were only two at the time. She said that the two main criteria for getting in were that "you had to be able to sing a song and knit a pair of socks" none of which she could do, hence, her move to study elswhere. This is just one of many witty stories from the elders lives which were also sentimental, tragic yet captivating for everyone to listen to.

A huge well done to our 22 Year 9 students who took part and thank you to Ms Mallon and Siobhan Reynolds for leading the project over the last 7 months. We are delighted to announce that we will be keeping the link with the Irish Cultural Centre next year with various new projects already lined up.