The “Photo Album of the Irish: Canada” exhibition at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum celebrates the ordinary and extraordinary histories of Canadians with Irish heritage across generations, reflected in their family photo albums. Beginning in February 2019, the Photo Museum Ireland team worked with families across Canada to record, preserve and share diverse social histories, revealing details that official histories can often overlook. It includes images from the 1860s right up to the present, giving an authentic view of diverse Irish emigrant experiences across Canada. Collectively, the photographs reveal the stories people chose to remember and celebrate in their own lives.

We will be joined by two notable speakers on the night, Dr Orla Fitzpatrick and Dr Deirdre Mulrooney. Dr Fitzpatrick will discuss the role photo albums play in providing fascinating insights into our private and public histories – revealing details about how people lived and worked that official histories often overlook while Dr Mulrooney will give an insight into her fascinating family history as depicted in the Photo Album of Irish: Canada exhibition.

Our lecture is presented in partnership with Photo Museum Ireland.

Booking is essential as places are limited.  Attendees will also be entered into a draw to win a signed copy of the ‘Photo Album of the Irish: Canada Edition’ publication.

Tickets available via Eventbrite.

About the speakers:

Dr Orla Fitzpatrick

Orla Fitzpatrick is one of Ireland’s leading photo historians. She holds a PhD on the topic of the Irish photographic book, modernity and modernism, 1922-1949, from Ulster University (2016). She teaches photographic history at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin and is currently undertaking a Post-Doctoral research on the Border Studies programme at TCD. Her post doc is part of the North-South Research Programme supported by the HEA, DFHERIS and the Shared Island Fund. She is currently on sabbatical from her role as the Head Librarian at the National Museum of Ireland. She has published widely on photography – her most recent publication is Lost Ireland published by Pavilion in 2021 She is a recipient of the 2021 Peter E. Palmquist memorial research for grant women in photography.

Dr Deirdre Mulrooney

Dr Deirdre Mulrooney is a documentary film-maker; author and dance historian. Deirdre will give an insight into her fascinating family history.

After they married in the late 1960s, Deirdre’s Limerick parents Mary and Paud Mulrooney moved to Toronto, Canada, where they had their children, and were primary school teachers. In the early 70s and 80s the family moved to live with the Ojibway and Cree people in Cat Lake, and Ogoki Post in northern Ontario where they ran the local schools at a critical period of transition from the Residential school system to more enlightened native community-run schools. Deirdre’s family album photographs and her own film “TRUE NORTH” (first shown in 2017), offer a unique representation of the Mulrooney family’s Irish-Canadian experience.

In 2008 Deirdre made a BAI-funded radio documentary “Ogoki – Call of the Wild” which is available to listen to here: https://www.mixcloud.com/deirdre-mulrooney/ogoki-call-of-the-wild-by-deirdre-mulrooney/