A NEW project that aims to document the experiences and history of Glasgow’s Donegal Diaspora was launched recently.
Christina McBride (above), a celebrated visual artist, lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art and, importantly, a daughter of immigrants from Donegal, brought her Glasgow-Donegal Photography initiative to the Glasgow St Patrick’s Festival in March and since then it has attracted a great deal of attention.
Background
Christina was brought up in the Gorbals and Toryglen areas of Glasgow. In the 1950s, her mother Nellí an Dálaigh, of Bun an Inbhir, Gaoth Dobhair, emigrated from Donegal to Glasgow where she met and married Barney McBride, a native of Dunafaghy.
She received a degree in Fine Art Photography at the Glasgow School of Art before undertaking a Masters at the Slade School of Art in London. Christina’s practice has included outdoor public art works, installations and is now rooted in lens-based enquiry through photography and film. Her work has been exhibited worldwide.
However, it’s her experience of ‘moving between the tenements of the densely packed Gorbals to the open expanse of the wild and windblown Atlantic coastline’ at her grandparents’ home at Bun an Inbhir in Gaoth Dobhair, Donegal that has proved a massive influence in her work—most notably her interest in the natural landscape—and the genesis of this most recent labour of love.
“I am part of a generation of Irish immigrant families who have spent a lifetime oscillating between a home in Glasgow and a home in Donegal,” Christina explained. “It was particularly our generation who would arrive with our instamatic cameras to photograph a landscape and way of life that was in contrast to the dark tenement life in the city. These photographs visualise and validate an important narrative, but they exist in a very dispersed and undocumented form in homes across Glasgow and Donegal.
“For some years now I have been trying to establish an archive which begins to collate and digitise these images and to make them available for current and future generations.”
Progress
In order to progress, Christina sought to built a bigger support network and was able to do this through the assistance of Dr Niall Whelehan and Dr Laura Kelly from the History Department at Strathclyde University. They put her in touch with Professor Breandan Mac Suibhne from the University of Galway and she found the momentum she was looking for. Support from the university in partnership with Údaras na Gaeltachta, Éalaín na Gaeltachta, allowed Christina to undertake a four-month residency at the university’s campus in Gaoth Dobhair.
The residency resulted in two independent, but connected projects, one of which was the establishment of the archive, which has a specific focus on the Glasgow/Donegal diaspora. During her residency, she was able to access a range of specialisms and key resources including faculty, a studio and the use of a large digital scanner which was essential to the development of the archive. The second project was the development of a new body of lens-based works made in response to the specific landscape of Gaoth Dobhair.
The first output from her residency took the form of a solo exhibition in An Gailearaí, Gaoth Dobhair in July 2023 entitled Criocha An Chroi (Heartland). This focussed on her own practice and the works she had been making using plant-based and sustainable processes.
Then, in November 2023, she had a second exhibition entitled Thall Udai (Over By) at the old Bun an Inbhir National School. This exhibition focussed on some of the work collected for the archive. The focus is now more on the Glasgow side, as she collects more images and recordings and work towards further exhibitions and events.
Response
Christina explained in a little more detail what she hopes to achieve from the new project and also detailed the excellent response she has had so far.
“In my lifetime of going back and forth to Donegal the place has changed so much—physically, socially, economically but the documentation of this change feels a bit sporadic,” she said. “I believe important images of this period—and much earlier—exists but are not located in Donegal, rather in homes and family albums across Glasgow/ Scotland.
“The aim of the archive is to collate these images and stories and to create an educational resource that can be accessed by current and future generations. Although I have already collated a lot of material, I feel I am still at an early stage with much more work to be done.”
“The initial response to the project has been really great and I have been incredibly touched by so many people entrusting me with their personal family images to be scanned,” Christina added. “It is clear that many people totally understand the importance of preserving these images and for the history and narratives of this diasporic community between Glasgow and Donegal to be visualised and validated. The exhibition I had in Gaoth Dobhair was so important in triggering lots of stories and memories so the aim is to organise the next exhibition in Glasgow.”
If you wish to share stories or images with Christina for the archive, please contact her via e-mail: glasgowgweedorearchive@gmail.com
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