The Golden Museum
The children of immigrants often grow up co-existing in parallel worlds. While they can be immersed in all aspects of their parent’s culture and identify strongly with that heritage they can also feel fully at home in the country of their birth.
In ‘The Golden Museum’, J.J. O’Shea reflects on his experience as the child of Irish immigrants in London in the mid-twentieth century. The story is told through interweaving threads of original music and song, poetry and commentary by J.J. and members of his extended family.
The long summer holidays spent on the family farm in Ireland before returning to London for the school year play a central part in the story as we are given glimpses of life in rural Kerry and in London in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s as viewed through the eyes of a growing child. The contributors explore different aspects of the immigrant experience. How did they respond to life in Ireland and their Irish cousins? What did their Irish cousins make of them? How did the experience impinge on their notions of ‘home’ and ‘identity’?
Original music and songs composed by J.J. O`Shea are performed by Reidun Schlesinger (harp), Paul de Grae (acoustic and electric guitar) and Barry Lynch (tin whistle and bodhrán) and sung by Sadhbh Nic Fhloinn and Emma Langford. Paula Meehan reads excerpts from her poems ‘Invocation’ ‘You Open Your Hand’ and ‘Daughters of Memory.’
Presented and Produced by J.J. O’Shea
Producer for RTÉ lyric fm: Eoin O Kelly
A J.J. O’Shea production funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland from the Television Licence Fee. (First broadcast – 25th December 2022)
RTÉ lyric fm, Sunday 26th January, 6pm-7pm
