Other major topics will focus on the fate of women emigrants from Ireland in the 19th and early 20th centuries; Human Rights and the Kennedys, as well as showcasing fashion and design in Limerick and the Mid-West
The momentous decision to introduce free secondary education in Ireland, announced 60 years ago this year by the then Minister for Education, Donogh O’Malley, will be one of the keynote topics that will be explored at the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Autumn School, which will be held in Bruff and Lough Gur, Co Limerick, on the October Bank Holiday weekend (Friday 23rd - Sunday 25th).
It will be discussed by a panel comprising Donogh O’Malley’s son, Daragh O’Malley, who is an actor, writer and documentary maker; Prof. Áine Hyland, Emeritus Professor of Education at UCC, who worked in the Department of Education in the early 1960s, and Prof. Tom Collins, Emeritus President of Maynooth University. The session will be moderated by RTE broadcaster and historian, David McCullagh.
This is the fifth annual Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Autumn School (RFKAS), which was established by a group of local people to commemorate the unique links between Bruff/Lough Gur and the family of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy; three of the four grandparents of Rose Fitzgerald (mother of the President) emigrated from the area in the post-Famine 1850s.
The keynote speaker at the autumn school last year was Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, niece of the President and daughter of Robert F Kennedy.
This year the Kennedy Clan will be represented at the Autumn School by sisters Michaela and Mariah Kennedy Cuomo, grand daughters of Robert Kennedy.
The increased awareness of Limerick’s links with President Kennedy’s family was also underlined recently when the Irish Government launched an American Presidents’ Trail, as part of Ireland’s contribution to the United States’ 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence, on July 4th last in Bruff.
That programme was launched by the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport, Patrick O’Donovan, with the planting of a tree at the Thomas Fitzgerald Centre in Bruff.
The Director of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Autumn School, Declan Hehir, said that
“it is very gratifying that there is such increased awareness of these ancestral links with probably the most famous of all the American Presidents that had Irish roots. Our School also celebrates the importance of Irish towns and villages as the ‘home place’ for the Irish Diaspora, and focuses too on the female side of the Irish emigration story, inspired by the enormous role played in American politics by Rose Fitzgerald herself”.
The Autumn School will be formally opened on the Friday evening by the Mayor of Limerick, John Moran; and he will be joined during the opening session by Kieran O’Donnell, TD, Minister of State for Housing and Older People, and the School Director, Declan Hehir.
The opening session of the school on the Friday night features a talk by Prof. Elaine Farrell, Queen’s University Belfast and Prof. Leanne McCormick, Ulster University, on their book “Bad Bridget – Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women”, covering the emigration story of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Also on the panel will be Michaela Kennedy Cuomo.
The Moderator will be Dr Catherine Healy, Historian-in-Residence at EPIC, the Irish Emigration Museum, Dublin, and the session will be closed by Dr. Tim O’Connor, RFKAS Committee Member and former Consul General of Ireland in New York.
On Saturday morning, there will be a focus on the story of Fashion and Design in the Mid-West region, which will take place at the Lough Gur Visitor Centre, featuring a panel consisting of Michael Stewart, founder of the leading London fashion label, Standing Ground, and a graduate of the Limerick School of Art and Design; Dara Waldron, a best-selling author and lecturer at the Limerick School of Art and Design; and Teresa Crowley, Director of the Hunt Museum, The moderator will be Deirdre McQuillan, Fashion Editor of the Irish Times, and the event will be curated by Mike Fitzpatrick, Emeritus Dean of Limerick School of Art and Design
There are a number of other interesting discussions scheduled for Saturday evening; Dr. Pat Wallace, former Director of the National Museum of Ireland, will interview Peter McMahon, one of the Irish Defence Forces Cadets who performed the Graveside Drill at President Kennedy’s Funeral, in Arlington Cemetery in November 1963.
In another session, Daithi Collopy, a renowned Limerick storyteller, will perform excerpts from his show “Young America and Old Ireland”.
Following the hugely successful first-ever holding of Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann in Belfast this Summer, the story of the first Irish language school in East Belfast (Scoil na Seolta) will be told by its founder Ms. Linda Ervine, a Protestant and Unionist language activist. The Moderator will be Dr. Roisin Ni Ghairbhi (Associate Professor of Irish at Mary Immaculate College).
There will also be a panel discussion “The Kennedys and Human Rights”, inspired by the work of the Kennedys, with Dr Barbara Perry (a biographer of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy; Liam Herrick (Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission), and Mariah Kennedy Cuomo, an Executive of the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Foundation. The Moderator will be Dr. Dan Mulhall, former Irish Ambassador to the United States.
On Sunday morning there will be a Mass at Patrickswell Church, Lough Gur, followed by the Fitzgerald Community Breakfast in the adjoining Honey Fitz Theatre.
In the afternoon there will also be a panel discussion on US politics today, with a focus on the Congressional Elections in November. The panel will comprise Dr Scott Lucas (Clinton Institute UCD); Ms. Michaela Kennedy Cuomo; Deputy John Lahart, Chair of the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee, and Dr. Gary O’Brien, Vice-President of Mary Immaculate College. The Moderator will be Dr. Dan Mulhall.
A performance of a play “Inspirations”, based on the work of local artists and directed by John Carew, will be the final session of the weekend.
Dr. Tim O’Connor commented:
“The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Autumn School explores the rich relationship between Ireland and its Global Diaspora and what that relationship means today for both sides. It also highlights that, in that relationship, communities around Ireland, like Bruff, have an important role to play as the custodians of the heritage and origins of those who left”.
Tickets for the event can be purchased on Eventbrite here.
