Belfam Events / Workshops
Belfast Family and Community History Launch by Martin Lynch
- Linen Hall Library, Belfast (11am, Tues 27th Mar)
Belfam are proud to announce the launch party for the 'Belfast Family and Community History' website. The event will take place at 11am, in the Linen Hall library in Belfast. Speakers will include the playwright and writer Martin Lynch, Professor Patrick Murphy of the Heritage Lottery Fund and Professor Liam Kennedy, director of the project.
Martin Lynch’s most recent play is the acclaimed "Holding Hands at Paschendale", premiered at the Lyric Theatre this autumn, on the theme of soldiers shot for alleged cowardice or desertion in World War I. Twenty six of the men ‘Shot at Dawn’ were from Ireland; remarkably a third of these came from Belfast.
Using census documents, BelFam has traced the home background of two of the executed: Peter Sands of Abyssinia St, off the Falls, and James Templeton, Enfield St, off the Shankill.
Images of the original census forms, photographic scenes of Edwardian Belfast, as well as digital images of documents relating to the sentencing of the Belfast soldiers, will be projected onto the large screen in the Performance Area. These form a backdrop to the speakers and the conversation between Martin Lynch & Liam Kennedy.