MAKING ART - CONNECTING PEOPLE
Sunday March 17th
St Patricks Day Parade, Bristol
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Lamplighter Arts are delighted to be involved in Bristol's WE Irish St Patricks Parade again, we are joining up with the University Of Bristol to research our contemporary migrant histories as Irish in Bristol from the 1950s to the present day. We will be inviting everyone to join us in sharing stories and with 10% of the British population identifying as having a least one Irish Grandparent, we expect to be busy.
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Here’s an early flavour of what to what to expect
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Patrick Cotter O'Brien
The parade will (hopefully) open with Patrick Cotter O'Brien, Bristol's tallest and likely most famous migrant. For this occasion he will stand a mighty 5 metre tall in his 18th century glory though his actual height was closer to 9ft. Patrick Cotter O' Brien was a Irish migrant and a showman famed across England whose performance and prowess played with the Irish mythology of giants by taking the name O'Brien after Brian Boru. So famous in England in his time that his portrait hangs in The National Gallery. ​
MCLIR & Other Old Stories
The mythical giant MCLIR son of the sea will also be joining us along side his unruly and chaotic family which crop up in the ancient cyles of Irish stories. You will get the opportunity to be involved in creating his family at community workshops which will be used to illustate the multigenerational irish diaspora. Watch this space.
WE Irish, Historians at The University Of Bristol and Lamplighter Arts CIC have been busy writing several exciting bids for funding and we are hoping we can create artworks, comedy and a bit of carnival craic that celebrates the lives lived by our mighty migrant family in the west of England - watch this space for our Letters Lives and Legacies project.