22-23 May 2015: ‘Paths to Freedom’, King House, Co. Roscommon
On 22-23 May 2015 King House, Boyle, Co. Roscommon, hosted an event entitled Paths To Freedom, organised by Roscommon County Council Arts Office and Library Services. Building on last year’s successful Great War Roadshow at King House, this year’s event also showcased the revolutionary decade 1912-1923. Paths To Freedom outlined the changing nature of Irish politics, work, class and gender roles in the years leading up to independence, and formed part the Ireland 2016 preparatory local awareness programme and organised by Roscommon County Council.
The two-day event took the form of lectures in King House on Friday May 22 and Saturday 23rd May, followed by a musical evening with songs and stories from the First World War performed by The Brook Singers, with soloists Sadhbh Burt Fitzgerald, Jonathan Creasy, actor/tenor Brendan MacQuaile and pianist Ronan Murray.
SCHEDULE:
FRIDAY 22 MAY:
9.45am: Introductions and Welcome/ Cathaoirleach:Cllr John Cummins Roscommon County Council
10.00am: Dr. Myles Dungan: ‘Selling the Great War in Ireland 1914-1918’
11.15pm: Dr. Ciaran Wallace: ‘Over there & over here: Ireland during the war years’
12.15pm: Gordon Power: ‘The Irish At Gallipoli/Tracing Your WW1 Ancestors’
2.00pm: Turtle Bunbury: ‘That Easter Dawn: the personalities of the 1916 Rising’
3.00pm: Damian Shiels: ‘The conflict landscape of Ireland’
SATURDAY 23 MAY:
10.00am: Dr. Mary McAuliffe: ‘Pre-1916 Cumann na mBan: national and local paths to revolution’
11.15am: Marie Egan Paul: ‘Around the Bridges. Margaret Cousins and the sttruggle for women’s emancipation’
8.00pm-10.00pm: Musical Evening: From ‘Tipperary’ to ‘The Green Fields of France’