Over a period of 3 days in July 2011, the filmmaker Mairéad McClean, worked with participants from the Live and Learn Project at The Ulster American Folk Park, to record their Migration stories. This is a single screened version (13mins) of the multi-screened installation that was presented in the Tullyallen Masshouse, for the month of September 2011.
The stories recoded were many and varied. Some stretched back 4 generations; stories being passed down through the family. Others recalled memories of migration in their own lifetime, reflecting on immediate family leaving and their reasons for doing so. Others experienced migration directly themselves coming to Northern Ireland to work or set up home. They recounted the experience of being in a foreign place, different from their own culture and how that felt.
What connects all the stories is migration itself and how it has permeated most of our lives.
