'Acts of Union: Mixed Marriage in Modern Ireland' is a major interdisciplinary investigation into the phenomenon of 'mixed marriage', or ‘love across the divide’, across the island of Ireland in the twentieth century. Funded by the UKRI and based at Queen's University Belfast, the project’s team—Dr Alison Garden, Dr Ruth Duffy and Professor Diane Urquhart—are using a variety of sources to explore, document and share this key part of the Irish story, north and south.
The project team will be working with multiple cultural institutions and organisations across the island of Ireland, including the Ulster Museum, the Belfast-based theatre company Kabosh and the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI), based in Dublin, to ignite our research and share it with the widest possible audiences.
We are currently recording oral history interviews with individuals who come from, or live in Ireland, with experience of being in a mixed relationship (broadly conceived). We’d also love to hear from those whose parents or grandparents were in a mixed relationship. We promise to treat all stories with respect and give interviewees full control over their contributions; we can also keep your contribution anonymous. Interviews will be continuing in 2024 and enquires come with no obligation to contribute. Please do get in touch with R.Duffy[at]qub.ac.uk to learn more and for an informal chat.
The project will run from 2020-2025+. Ruth and Alison have co-authoring an article for The Honest Ulsterman which you can read here, and are co-editing an interdisciplinary volume on the Irish history of mixed relationships.
You can follow the project on X (Twitter) here.