We are thrilled to announce the recent launch of the Irish Heritage Project that we have been planning for the last few months.
The project is called The In Real Life (I.R.L.) Project and is a new, collaborative initiative between the Irish organizations of San Diego and The Irish Outreach Center. This initiative is supported by the Irish Government through their Emigrant Support Program funding.
The aim of the project is to account for, and to preserve the journeys, memories and stories of Irish immigrants to San Diego for the benefit of their families and for generations to come.
The first step of ‘The I.R.L. Project’ is to discover and document all Irish-born citizens currently living in San Diego County. We will gain greater understanding by preserving their personal stories and focus on their contributions and achievements in civic life, business, sport and culture. They contributed to the establishment of organizations such as the GAA, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and strengthened Irish-American relationships in their new home here in Southern California.
The next step following this will be to connect with those who wish to tell their story through mediums (as social distancing guidelines allow), such as:
– audio recordings of their life stories
– audiovisual documentation
– a written record
Ultimately, we will showcase the diversity of this heritage through museum exhibits, photographic displays, podcasts, etc.
We are requesting that all Irish-born residents in San Diego County assist us by completing this short questionnaire. The information gathered will not be shared with anyone outside of this organization without your consent; it is purely for statistical data. We would be very grateful if you could pass this form on to any Irish-born friends, acquaintances or colleagues in San Diego County that you may know.
Please fill out the Google Form here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScw03NY04mU26-mpVJtWYlUVXWZLNZkIqOgj1jIcGFN-uWV_A/viewform
We ask that questionnaires are submitted by September 1st 2020.
It’s incredibly exciting to see this project take flight, having been a dream of ours for quite a while now. In July we began audio-visually recording the first of our in-person interviews and already we have a wealth of tales of old Ireland, what it was like to emigrate as a young Irish person, and so on. There really are some wonderful stories to be heard and we cannot wait to share them with you.
We hope to record a whole plethora more over the coming months, giving precedence to capturing the stories of the older Irish residents of San Diego first.
If you or anyone you know would be interested in getting involved with this project, we would love to hear from you! Send us an email to [email protected] and we look forward to hearing your story.