This year’s Allingham Festival will kick off on Wednesday, November 8th with not one, but two fascinating lectures which this year share a related theme.
The Emerson Lecture (commemorating Lucius and Kathleen Emerson) will once again be delivered by Anthony Begley, Ballyshannon’s leading local historian. Anthony returns to a historical subject close to his heart on which he has written at some length in the past.
It is 175 years since a group of 19 orphan girls left the workhouse in Ballyshannon on the long journey to Sydney, Australia under the Earl Grey scheme. Who were they? Why were they chosen? How did they get there and what happened afterwards? Full answers to these questions may not be possible at this remove but Anthony will provide us with many interesting perspectives.
For those who can’t wait, we recommend Anthony’s “Ballyshannon Musings” blog and his short book “From Ballyshannon to Australia”
Later that evening, the Allingham lecture will be delivered by Dr Niall Muldoon, Ireland's Ombudsman for Children on the related theme, “Children’s Rights in Ireland – From the Workhouse to the Family Hub”.
Niall will offer a history of children’s rights in Ireland. He will outline the negative ways we have treated children since the time of the workhouses and the progress we have made since we, as a State, ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1992.
Niall’s background is as a clinical psychologist and he has worked in the area of child protection in a variety of roles for almost 20 years.
He lives in Dublin with his wife and two daughters, but says that “… although as a passionate GAA supporter, I can appreciate the positives of being a Dub, I am a Donegal man through and through.” We look forward to his bringing that unique Donegal perspective to one of the most urgent issues in Ireland today.