University of Limerick graduate’s research fuels exhibition on anti-nuclear music festivals

A NEWLY-conferred UL graduate will soon embark on a touring exhibition across the country inspired by his research on Ireland’s anti-nuclear festivals.

Caimin Walsh, who was conferred with a Master’s in Ethnomusicology from UL’s Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, was one of over 2,000 students to graduate at UL’s Winter Conferring Ceremonies.

The Caherdavin native is steeped in the Limerick arts scene as a curator of contemporary art at Limerick’s Ormston House.

Ormston House’s upcoming exhibition, Memory of a Free Festival, centres on Ireland’s Anti-Nuclear Movement (1978-1981) and the music festivals that helped to mobilise communities against nuclear power, a topic Caimin explored extensively for his MA thesis. The exhibition will feature reproductions of items held in UL’s Special Collections, which Caimin drew on for his MA research.

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Caimin’s curiosity led him to UL where he embarked on the MA in Ethnomusicology. It was while he was curating a project at Ormston House on the role of music and Irish political history that he came across Songs of Social Protest, a collection of essays exploring the role of song within various protest movements, edited by UL academics Dr Aileen Dillane, course director of UL’s MA in Ethnomusicology, Dr Martin Power, Professor Eoin Devereux and Professor Amanda Haynes.

He chose to focus his MA research on how anti-nuclear festivals held between 1978 and 1981 at Carnsore Point in Co Wexford, on the proposed site of Ireland’s first nuclear power station, played a significant role in mobilising communities to oppose nuclear development in Ireland. The touring exhibition will be launched in Dublin on March 21 and will open in Limerick’s Ormston House in mid-April.

Caimin explained: “My Master’s in Ethnomusicology from UL gave me the skills to develop in-depth research, to analyse and interpret the events of the Carnsore anti-nuclear festivals and carry out interviews with organisers and performers.”

“The exhibition will feature a mix of work by fantastic contemporary Irish artists and presentations of material from UL’s archive, along with never seen before video and photo documentation of the festivals,” he added.