location
Luton Irish Forum
Date
2012 - 2013
Activities
Interviews, Workshops & Exhibition
Catching the Boat was a year long heritage project that captured and showcased the story of the working heritage of the Irish community from 1940 to 1960. It explored the industries in which individuals were employed, their methods of travel to the UK and their uniforms or work clothing.
This project showed how the Irish settled in Luton and then made their own special contribution to its development.
The original archive website allowed individuals to tell their own stories before they are lost to us for ever. It’s a story of shared endeavour and achievement.
We have preserved the original content of the Catching The Boat website and are showcasing the fantastic stories as part of our People’s Stories page on this, our new online archive.
Over 100 stories were collected as part of Catching The Boat. We are taking time to catch up with some of the participants to update their stories, collect more images and videos to bring stories to life and gathering new stories from community members.
We will be adding more stories so please pop back from time to time to have a look.
Some of the participants of Catching The Boat had previously taken part in the Luton Voices project 2006-2010, also and as part of a Cambridge University focus group looking at how educational experience has changed across generations of the same family. The research was related to an older study with Luton Vauxhall workers in the 1960s called the Affluent Worker, here are their stories.
Cambridge University focus group
Luton Irish Forum: Vauxhall Workers | Luton Irish Forum
Luton Voices project 2006-2010
Joe Ward Luton Voices UK | Luton Voices
Luton Voices - John Horan 01 | lutonvoices
Luton Voices - John Horan 02 | lutonvoices
Luton Voices - Catherine Power | Luton Voices
Luton Voices - Patrick Crossin | Luton Voices
