Conference - The Gathering: Local History, Heritage and Diaspora

I've been asked by Professor Marion Lyons of the National University of Ireland at Maynooth to try to help spread the word on a forthcoming conference entitled The Gathering: Local History, Heritage and Diaspora, which will be taking place on Saturday 24th November 2012, from 9.30am-4.00pm, at Renehan Hall, Maynooth University (south campus). Here goes...!

A quick summary of the conference aims from Marion:

The purpose of the conference is to bring a number of innovative projects that our researchers are engaged in to the attention of professionals working in the field of genealogy/Diaspora studies, i.e. people who might benefit from hearing about projects that have been developed in order to help Irish emigrants track their ancestors' migrant experiences and journeys.

The emphasis is on specialists show-casing their original work, highlighting the sources that they accessed, how they used them, what they were able to derive from those sources, how they would advise people to go about accessing and using those sources for other research, and in some cases e.g. John Joe Conwell, how one goes about setting up an initiative such as the Reaching Out project.

As part of the event, there will be an opportunity for delegates to view the Morpeth Testimonial Roll and to hear a presentation on what it is, how it might be of use to genealogists as a major census substitute, etc. This will be given by Christopher Ridgway who is curator of Castlehoward where the Roll was discovered.

An important feature of the day's proceedings will be a presentation, made by Mario Corrigan, County Librarian for Kildare, about how local historians, genealogists, librarians, heritage officers and others can help us with the task of identifying the approximately 250,000 people whose signatures or marks are recorded on the Morpeth Testimonial Roll. The hope is to get local communities on board in the coming months to share their knowledge of local history and local families in order to help us identify as many of these people as possible.

And here is the programme for the day:

9.15am Registration
9.30am Welcome & introduction - Professor Marian Lyons (Department of History, NUI Maynooth)
9.35am Opening address: The Gathering 2013 - Tim O’Connor (Chairman, Board of The Gathering)
10.00-10.20am ‘The global Irish family and its history’ - Patrick Fitzgerald (Mellon Centre for Migration Studies, Omagh)
10.20-10.40am ‘Working with the Irish abroad - a perspective from the Department of Foreign Affairs and trade’ - Niall Burgess (Department of Foreign Affairs)
10.40-11.00am ‘The Ireland Reaching Out Programme’ - John Joe Conwell (Community Liaison Officer for the Ireland Reaching Out Programme)
Q & A
11.20am Coffee
11.4 0-12.00 Searching for your lost ancestors: using transmigration studies - Dr Gerard Moran (Department of History, NUI Maynooth)
12.00-12.20 Entrepreneurs, innovators and philanthropists: the Irish imprint on the American Midwest, 1850-1900 - Ms Regina Donlon (Department of History, NUI Maynooth)
12.20-12.40 ‘In search of the Strokestown Famine emigrants’ - Dr Ciarán Reilly (Department of History, NUI Maynooth)
Q & A
1.00pm Lunch & viewing of the Morpeth Roll
2.00-2.20pm The Morpeth Roll: an introduction - Christopher Ridgway (Curator, Castle Howard, York & Adjunct Professor, Department of History, NUI Maynooth) - Chairperson: Professor Terence Dooley (Centre for Historic Irish Houses & Estates, Department of History, NUI Maynooth)
2.20-3.00pm Bringing the Morpeth Roll to life: a challenge for local historians - Mario Corrigan (Executive Librarian, Kildare Library & Arts Services) - Chairperson: Professor Raymond Gillespie (Department of History, NUI Maynooth)
3.00-4.00pm Plenary discussion led by Dr Patrick Fitzgerald
Q & A session: What contribution can local historians make to The Gathering?

Registration fee: €25 (light lunch, tea & coffee included). Advanced booking recommended. For further information and to book, contact the History Department, NUI Maynooth log on to www.nuim.ie/academic/history and follow the links for the conference. Alternatively, tel. 01-7083729 or email history.department@nuim.ie

NB: the booking form gives Friday 16th November as the closing date for receipt of registration forms - but Marion informs me that if people submit their forms by Wednesday 21st November, that will be acceptable

COMMENT: for more on the Morpeth Roll (and this is going to be major folks!), read my post in the Scottish GENES archive at http://scottishancestry.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/1841-document-with-300000-irish-names.html

(With thanks to Marion)

Chris

Scotland 1750-1850 - 5 weeks online Pharos course, £45.99, taught by Chris Paton from 2 NOV 2012 - see www.pharostutors.com
New book: It's Perthshire 1866 - there's been a murder... www.thehistorypress.co.uk/products/The-Mount-Stewart-Murder.aspx (from June 12th 2012)