My Country, A Journey: A Research-Based Drama on the Irish Migrant Experience in Britain

This project seeks to exploit the potential of research-based theatre in order to address a specific non-academic cultural need - powerfully articulated in recent speeches by the Irish President, Dr Michael D. Higgins - which is to draw from our historical experience of migration an appropriately ethical response to the arrival of migrants in our own times. To achieve this, it is proposed to transform the research insights of the critically acclaimed book that was the key output of the original project into a more accessible format which goes beyond the forms of dissemination that traditionally serve academic communities. Drawing on his book's experientially rich testimonies, the PI will work collaboratively with non-academic partners, third sector organisations and charitable bodies to create and tour a bespoke play that will holistically engage and encourage new audiences to explore the diverse experiences and identities of the Irish in Britain since 1700. This specially commissioned play, written by renowned community-based playwright-director Martin Lynch, will be premised on the central arguments of the original project, which are that the testimonies of memoirists unsettle assumptions of Irish migrant homogeneity and contradict clichéd views of emigration as a national tragedy. Consequently, the accent will be on the multiple ways of being Irish in Britain and on the extent to which migrant identities have been constituted in difference and division as much as in commonality and solidarity. By translating these personal narratives into an empathic drama, this innovative collaboration will provide an exciting opportunity to acquaint the wider British and Irish public with the central intellectual concerns of the original research, at a time when Ireland is once again shedding emigrants, many of whom are have begun to settle in Britain. As such, the play, which will tour community and cultural centres in Britain and Ireland over a three-week period, will offer an alternative performative way of accessing socially relevant knowledge, by eliciting responses that are experiential, embodied and affective, rather than simply cognitive.

The project will feature an informative theatre programme, which will include an interview with the playwright-director, and post-performance panel discussions, which will allow audience members to ask questions and discuss the issues raised with the PI, playwright and cast. The project will also be accompanied by an innovative education and outreach programme, which will be modelled on previous successful programmes of this kind run by the participating not-for-profit theatre theatre company, Green Shoot Productions (GSP). This programme will take the form of six two-hour workshops delivered over six weeks in four selected venues: Belfast, Castlebar, Manchester and London. Each workshop will be co-ordinated by a local facilitator who will work with c.15 participants drawn from local communities in these places to enable them to shape and write down their memories and perceptions of emigration, a selection of which will be read at performances of the play and published in booklet form. Five of these workshops will precede the play's visit to these venues. The sixth will happen shortly afterwards, thereby providing a valuable additional means of capturing audience impact and feedback by working with an audience sample in a focused follow-up session. Although the reworking of personal narrative into performance has a long history, there has never been a staging of a project on Irish migration that purposefully dramatises research outcomes in this manner. The proposed project thus constitutes a novel way of making original research and its outcomes accessible to non-academic audiences in a dynamic, engaging and embodied way, thereby creating social and economic benefits through improvements in social and intellectual capital, social networking, community identity and quality of life.

By enhancing popular understanding of cultural narratives of migration through research-based performance, this bespoke play will benefit the wider British and Irish public and older and newer generations of Irish people in Britain. It will also benefit members of communities affected by migration through its outreach programme, which is designed to give expression and dignity to the participants' stories. That two emigrant-focused charities - one London-based, the other Mayo-based - will benefit financially from the box office receipts further underlines the project's potential to have a positive societal impact. The play that will be the project's main output will be aimed at a non-specialist audience and will seek to exploit the capacity of personal accounts of physical journeys to initiate reflective inward journeys in those who view them. The play's episodic storytelling framework will engage viewers holistically, eliciting audience responses that are not merely cognitive but also affective and experiential. As such, the work will offer a powerful connective pathway to social understanding of cultural diversity, counter misleading myths and stereotypes and stimulate much-needed public debate on what an appropriately ethical response to the arrival of migrants in our own times should be.

Both the consultant playwright-director and the not-for-profit theatre company have been chosen for their excellent artistic fit for this project and also for their long-standing commitment to connecting with local communities and disadvantaged audiences outside academia. Steeped in the egalitarian values of community-based drama, Martin Lynch and GSP have been uniquely successful in reaching out to non-theatre-going audiences by taking plays to community-based venues in Ireland and Britain. At the core of Lynch's value system is a commitment to the highest aesthetic standards in the service of social, educational and even curative aims. Since the 1970s, he has been a powerful advocate of theatre as means to explore social and communal issues, to give public voice and visibility to hidden experience, to rehearse change and to envision new approaches to old problems. Working from these principles - which resonate strongly with those underpinning this proposal - Lynch produces plays that are socially relevant and culturally challenging, and which create opportunities for creative expression and cultural understanding. GSP regularly performs to audiences from the most disadvantaged communities and all its productions are accompanied by high-quality education and outreach programmes, which this project will replicate by running a six-week workshop event in four selected UK and Irish venues, the creative outputs of which (participants' stories and memoirs) will serve as a solid evidential base for impact claims. These, combined with the audience questionnaires distributed at all performances, will provide a valuable means of capturing the play's impact and assessing the extent of its personal resonance and emotional connection with audiences.

Several durable social, cultural and economic benefits flow from this community-based tour, which this project aims to harness. The civic benefits to audiences will take the form of enhanced knowledge, strengthened community bonds and social networks, the public validation of overlooked histories and increased empathic understanding of the processes by which individuals are shaped by their ethnic origins and the multicultural cities in which they live. Foremost among the project's "hard" impacts will be its contribution to strengthening partnerships between academic researchers, third sector organisations, charitable bodies and local communities; its economic contribution to regional areas through increased visitor numbers and public spending; and its potential to lead to the organisation of other cultural activities that could be initiated and managed by community groups themselves.