St. Brigid’s Day Celebration 2024
To celebrate St Brigid’s Day and Pride History Month, the Consulate General of Ireland, Manchester enjoyed an evening launching the fascinating pop up exhibition ‘Out in the World’ at Central Library | Manchester City Council .
The exhibition celebrates IRELAND's LGBTQ+ Diaspora. Across the generations, Irish LGBTQ+ people have emigrated and found opportunities to live and love abroad. EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, in partnership with the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, are proud to play a role in illuminating this hidden history of Irish emigration. Across six themes – exclusion, community, love, defiance, solidarity and return – Out in the World highlights twelve stories from the vast history of Ireland’s LGBTQ+ diaspora.
Guests, including the Lord Mayor of Manchester Yasmine Dar, High Sherriff of Greater Manchester Mary Liz Walker, members of various Manchester LGBTQ+ societies and of the Irish Community enjoyed viewing the exhibition to live traditional Irish music.
We were delighted to welcome friend of the Consulate, Bridie Breen to recite her own poems celebrating St Brigid. Bridie’s poems really captured the essence of the occasion and added so much to our evening.
Following Bridie, Professor Sonja Tiernan gave a fascinating talk on Eva Gore Booth, an Irish poet and suffragist who, along with her life partner Esther Roper, campaigned for working-class women’s rights here in Manchester. Eva Gore Booth features in the exhibition, but is also an exemplar for the overarching St Brigid’s Day theme of celebrating women’s achievements. Professor Sonja Tiernan, author of the first dedicated biography of Eva Gore Booth presented a snippet of her remarkable life including a very interesting account of her taking on Churchill - noted in this article History Ireland
An evening enjoyed by so many had to end as the library closed, however, gratefully the Manchester mizzle which had earlier caused chaos eased for the for the journeys home.
We are the delighted the exhibition will be on display at Central Library | Manchester City Council, first floor, until 29 February 2024, to view at your leisure.