Many of our readers may be interested to hear of an upcoming, novel event being hosted on Human Rights Day (10 December) by the Human Rights in Ireland blog. The following is their description of the event:
As announced in August, the Human Rights in Ireland blog will host a performance on 10 December at 6pm in Druid Theatre, Galway to celebrate Human Rights Day. The event is called ‘Whoop it up for Liberty!’ – an ironic quote from Connolly’s Reconquest of Ireland. As part of the performance, actors, local people and community activists will read aloud from texts commemorating key moments in Irish history which relate to the theme of human rights. The performance will feature first person narratives which highlight the experiences of workers, women, people with disabilities, travellers, language rights activists, asylum seekers, children, prisoners and many others as they relate to human rights in Ireland – from historical perspectives right through to the present day. Thomas Conway, literary manager of Druid Theatre, will direct the performance, which will be followed by a question and answer session where the texts and themes will be further discussed. Since this is a not-for-profit event, we are seeking support to cover our production costs. The director and actors involved are generously volunteering their time, and in order to do justice to the inspiring texts used to create the script, we would like to make this as professional an event as possible. The event has been listed as a creative venture on Fund It to secure crowd source funding for the performance. This link will take you to the Fund It page for the event where you can watch a video clip of some of the actors involved reading from a draft script – and we would appreciate if readers of the blog could repost the link via social media. Donations received will go towards the cost of hiring the venue and rehearsal space, lighting and sound, recording the performance, providing catering for the cast and crew after the performance, producing programme notes for the event, and making the performance accessible to all. This will be the first time an event of this kind has been performed in Ireland, using first-person narratives to explore historical and present-day experiences of human rights across a broad range of issues: identity, belonging, democracy, politics, solidarity, and exclusion. We hope that people will contribute what they can to make the event a success – and we hope to see as many of you as possible on 10th December in Galway!