During the strike, in response to the horrific images of miners and their supporters being battered by the police, donations of cash were received from around the world, More money was raised in Ireland per head of population than anywhere else, Britain included, with many support groups being set up to 'adopt' individual mining communities. The story is told of one elderly woman in Dublin putting a £10 note, a large proportion of her pension, into a collection tin. She said it was to repay the […]
A personal account of the experience of growing up gay in 1970’s Ireland ,and how gay activists and punk rock musicians (including artists like Phil Chevron along with British bands and songwriters) inspired a new generation defending and fighting for ‘a love that did not have a name'. Presented by Eoin Freeney, Punk Rocker member of Chant! Chant! Chant!, Former Gay activist, and cofounder in 1991 of ‘ Muted Cupid" Irelands first gay community theatre group.
Bristol’s new gaol on Cumberland Road first opened its doors for business in 1820. Ambitiously conceived as a modern alternative to the crumbling, insecure and insanitary old prison at Newgate, the architects of the New Gaol sought to turn punishment into a science. Systems of hard labour, a treadwheel, constant surveillance, segregation, religious instruction and minimal interpersonal association were intended to target prisoners’ minds as well their bodies. The New Gaol’s reputation amongst […]
The parish of Stapleton was once home to soldiers and sailors who were interned in Stapleton Prison as prisoners of war during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, captured fighting Britain and its allies between 1792 and 1814. Many of the prisoners had been fighting for liberté, égalité and fraternité, as the foot soldiers of a revolution that swept away tyrants and made the old powers of Europe tremble. In a cruel irony, a large contingent held in Stapleton had been captured in the […]
Not A BRHG Event
An illustrated talk about a notorious madhouse run as a private business for 120 years, with some startling revelations. Based on the BRHG publication No Cure, No Fee, Boarding excepted. Long before the NHS, those who did not fit ‘the norm’ were consigned to workhouses or to private lunatic asylums. The latter provided a profitable business opportunity, as the wealthy were only too keen to offload family members whose behaviour was inconvenient. It was a system open to abuses that Daniel Defoe […]
Not A BRHG Event
An illustrated talk about a notorious madhouse run as a private business for 120 years, with some startling revelations. Based on the BRHG publication No Cure, No Fee, Boarding excepted. Long before the NHS, those who did not fit ‘the norm’ were consigned to workhouses or to private lunatic asylums. The latter provided a profitable business opportunity, as the wealthy were only too keen to offload family members whose behaviour was inconvenient. It was a system open to abuses that Daniel Defoe […]
Not A BRHG Event
Inspired by Rosemary Caldicott's Life and Death of Hannah Wiltshire BRHG are pleased to announce that Bedminster based acta and Pick N Mix Theatre have researched, written and produced a play based on this fascinating story about their local workhouse. From their website: A retelling of the investigation into the events that took place at Bedminster Union Workhouse in 1855. Step into the haunting history of Bedminster’s Union Workhouse with an immersive play brought to life by two acta groups. […]
As Colin Thomas described in his review for BRHG, this is an important - but also deeply flawed book. Despite the intriguing revelations and approaches explored, the basic flaw in my opinion is a need to take aim at a straw man which is simply an expression of the authors’ disdain for anything smacking of ‘materialism’, and their expressed scorn for a whole field of anthropology and archaeology that just happens to fall prior to their own designated era of study. There is also a lack of clarity […]
Not A BRHG Event
This talk considers, from a Bristol perspective, the huge wave of strikes involving tens, if not hundreds of thousands of personnel in the British Armed forces at the end of World War One. Mass insubordination, refusals and in some cases mutiny swept through army, navy and air force personnel in January 1919. Driven by the desire for immediate demobilisation and fears that politicians and military leaders might commit them to the ongoing invasion of revolutionary Russia and other colonial […]
