Danny Dowling, the New Zealand born, Galway based comedian, noted how emigration to the islands saw “the English going to Christchurch, the Scots to Dunedin, and the Irish congregating around Timaru”.
Irish emigration to New Zealand, like emigration to Canada, Argentina, and Australia has been overlooked, perhaps neglected, in comparison to Irish emigration to the USA, but a forthcoming lecture in the Town Hall Theatre, is set to correct this.
Dr Anna Davin, a pioneering feminist historian of the 1970s, a founder of the History Workshop movement in Oxford, is coming to Galway to deliver the lecture Growing up Irish in early 20th century New Zealand.
Dr Davin has recently been researching her own family background in County Galway and New Zealand. Her antecedents include Ellen Silke of Ballindooley, who left Ireland in 1866 and two years later got married in New Zealand to John Crowe of Corrandulla. Another ancestor was Patrick Davin of Tonegurrane, Corrandulla. Her lecture will discuss the fortunes of these people and their families.
The lecture takes place in the Town Hall studio on Wednesday April 30 at 8.30pm. Admission is €3/2 and advance booking is through 091 - 569777. The lecture is organised by the Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour & Class, at NUI Galway.
