June 2014

Connected Communities ‘Festival’ 2014 to be held in the week Commencing 30 June 2014 in Cardiff main event on 1st and 2nd July 2014 at The St David’s Hotel Conference Centre, Cardiff Bay).

As part of the Connected Communities Programme’s wider engagement activities, we are planning to hold a Festival in Cardiff during the week of 30th June 2014, including a major open public event on 1st and 2nd July 2014 to be held in The St David’s Hotel Conference Centre, Cardiff Bay. The ‘Festival’ aims to provide researchers and community and other partners within the Programme with an opportunity to reflect, share learning and discuss their research with other participants within the programme and to reach out to, and engage with, researchers, communities and community organisations not currently involved in the Programme and to enhance the public profile of their research. The Festival will take on the role of previous summits and showcases as the major open public outreach event for the Programme in 2014 as well as main large forum for networking across the whole Programme.

We wish to invite expressions of interest from current and past Connected Communities research teams and their partners for a wide range of activities to contribute to the Festival. We are particularly keen to encourage innovative and creative ideas, participatory activities and collaborative proposals from groups of projects and/or ideas with the potential to attract wider and/or more diverse participation in the Festival. Applications which pay particular attention to the Welsh context, or more local context in Cardiff, for the Festival will also be welcomed. However, we will also welcome proposals to re-use or re-stage activities from past Showcases/ events where these might be of interest to new audiences in Cardiff.

This is the first of two calls for expressions of interest in participating in the Festival, with a particular focus on activities requiring longer lead in times and/or more complex staging or logistical requirements.

We are also considering the possibility of running a number of other complementary activities during the week of the Festival and further details of these will be made available in early 2014.

For further information please visit Connected Communities

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Marking the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, The Original Theatre Company & Birdsong Productions Ltd present Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong, the hit, critically acclaimed stage show based on the world famous novel.

In pre-war France, a young Englishman Stephen Wraysford embarks on a passionate and dangerous affair with the beautiful Isabelle Azaire that turns their world upside down. As the war breaks out over the idyll of his former life, Stephen must lead his men through the carnage of the Battle of the Somme and through the sprawling tunnels that lie deep underground.

Faced with the unprecedented horror of the war Stephen clings to the memory of Isabelle as his world explodes around him.

A mesmerising story of love and courage. Set both before and during the Great War. Adapted for the stage by Rachel Wagstaff and Directed by Alastair Whatley, Birdsong is performed by a large ensemble company including Olivier nominated actor and former Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan and Hollyoaks' Jonny Clarke.

Following on from last year’s national tour, seen by over 75,000 people, now it is your chance to experience this stunning piece of theatre live on stage.

Duration: 2 hours 40 minutes. Education Pack

For further information please visit Grand Opera House : Birdsong

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PRONI is pleased to announce details of a special poetry reading on the theme of war. The First and Second World Wars inspired gifted writers from Wilfred Owen to Timothy Corsellis to commit to paper their personal wartime narratives. These texts, often graphic and harrowing, have gone on to become parts of the world's cultural fabric.

As the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War nears, contemporary poets continue to be moved by the subject of war. Many documented tales from war are often bound up in archives however, and are often only discovered years, even centuries after the event. In this context, PRONI will host a reading for two special poets, whose work draws on these past critical conflicts: conflicts which are well illustrated in PRONI collections.

First on the agenda will be Genevieve Swift.

Genevieve is an award winning actor, director and facilitator. She trained as an actor at Birmingham School of Acting and has performed on stage, radio and TV. She also teaches acting and facilitates community and youth drama projects.

Genevieve co-founded award-winning Theatre Without Walls and has facilitated or directed over 150 projects for television, radio, theatre, charities, schools and community groups. She has been chief actor for several years in Words of War, a Theatre Without Walls production which focuses on the recorded memories of war, from early conflicts up the First World War. For this special performance, we are very excited to annouce that Genevieve will tailor her work to incorporate materials and stories from PRONI's extensive archival collections.

Following on from Geneveve will be Andrew Eaton.

Andrew is originally from California and now lives with his wife in Belfast. His research centres around the archival material of a series of cassette tapes on which his paternal grandfather narrates his life story, in particular his years of internment in a prison camp during the Second World War. Andrew is a doctoral candidate at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen's University, Belfast. His poems have recently appeared in the Honest Ulsterman, Magma and Narrative magazines, among others.

Location: Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, 2 Titanic Boulevard, Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT3 9HQ.

For further information please visit First World War centeranry - War Words: poetry inspired by the First and Second World Wars

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‌THURSDAY 19th JUNE 2014 9.30 - 1.30 pm ETHICAL AND SHARED REMEMBERING CONFERENCE THE GREAT WAR: Remembering WW1 Johnston McMaster will explore World War 1 and its legacy in Ireland. Cathy Higgins will explore the Poetics of War in relation to WW1.
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"Unless we learn some hard lessons from history, we may well repeat the past. The desired and shared future is the context in which we remember a decade which shaped Ireland for the rest of the 20th century, and still cast a long shadow over our lives together on the island" Johnston McMaster

For further information please visit The Junction NI

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A display of small memorial crosses naming each of the people killed in World War I who are buried in these Belfast cemeteries.‌

Venue :- Belfast Central Library

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In conjunction with North Down Council’s “Ships, Planes and Automobiles” event in Bangor, Grey Point Fort will commemorate its WW1 links. Would you be fit enough to enlist? Be put through your paces by the drill sergeant! Tap out a message in Morse and try your hand at code breaking or why not volunteer in the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) Defence Heritage Project (DHP). 11-5pm each day.

For more information contact 028 9185 3621

For further information please visit First World War centeranry - Take part in this gloabal commemoration

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An overview of the city before, during and after the Great War from a social perspective. Central to the exhibition will be Irelands Memorial Records, a comprehensive list of the Irish who lost their lives during the conflict. The pages will be turned on a regular basis.

Venue :- Belfast Central Library

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World War 1 A Photographic Exhibition by Micky Harte and Laurence Menary.‌

Venue :- Lurgan Library

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