An open-air concert in aid of destitute and elderly Irish people in London is to take place near Castlebar, Co Mayo, on June 24th.
Co-sponsored by Irish construction and engineering firms, the line-up for the Streets of London concert will include the Sharon Shannon Big Band with Dessie O'Halloran, Lúnasa, the Fureys and Davey Arthur, Dervish, Cora Smyth and Breda Smyth, and the Guggenheim Grotto. It will take place in the grounds of the National Museum Country Life site at Turlough Park near Castlebar.
An associated exhibition on the theme of emigration will open at the museum on June 23rd. Also titled Streets of London, its official opening will be next month and it will continue to the end of September. Primarily a photographic exhibition, it will show images from four collections concerning Irish emigration to Britain, especially to London.
A Streets of London concert at Dublin's Vicar Street in December 2004 raised €23,000 for the Aisling Return to Ireland Project.
The concerts and exhibition were inspired by an RTÉ Prime Time special on the plight of elderly Irish emigrants in Britain in December 2004. It is estimated that 60 per cent of the homeless in London are Irish. Surveys have shown that of all ethnic minorities in Britain, the Irish have the highest levels of mental illness, poorest health generally, and die younger.
Among them are people whose combined remittances to Ireland in the 1940s-60s are estimated at £3.5 billion, a sum equivalent to the structural funds received by this State from Europe in the following generation. In 1961, they sent home the equivalent of €13.5 million, the cost of running the education system that year.
Tickets from Ticketmaster are €25 and €60 for a family with up to three children. All proceeds go to two London-based registered charities, the Aisling Return to Ireland Project and Cricklewood Homeless Concern.
Full details of the concert and exhibition are at www.streetsoflondonconcert.com
