YH Award Winners

This project discusses Jimmy Gralton, the only man since the beginning of the Free State in Ireland to be deported without trial. He was targeted by both the Catholic Church, landlords and the Royal Irish Constabulary due to his socialist beliefs. He could also be considered one of the first targeted by the anti-jazz movement as those who attended the Pearse-Connolly dancehall Gralton founded were often threatened by the local priests.

This project discusses the history and significance of the railway in the Mohill area.

On Station Road, Mohill, there is a large, red brick building in an overgrown field. A faded wooden sign on the fence says, ‘Narrow Gauge Railway Station.’ This building was a train station on the Cavan and Leitrim Railway, which closed over 60 years ago.

This project is about the beginnings of the movement Solidarność, and how its actions affected the daily life of people living in Poland between 1970 and 1985.

Following strikes in Gdansk in 1980  led by Lech Walesa, Solidarność emerged as a movement, then a trade union. Over 10 million people joined Solidarność and it marked the beginning of the end of communism in Poland.

This is the period of time in which my parents grew up and they have told me of their struggles and joys during that time. In this project, I investigate how life was during the 1970s in Poland, what exactly the movement Solidarność did, and how it affected people's lives, by interviewing my grandparents and researching online.

Michael Leo O’Reilly was my Great-Grandfather. He fought for Irish independence and when he died, he had a military funeral. His dad Andrew was an ex RIC police man; when Michael Leo was 17,  he joined the Irish Volunteers in 1917. He was arrested 4 times and was in Mountjoy, Brixton, Wormwood Scrubs and Dundalk prisons. After the War of Independence, he joined the anti treaty side and trained troops as a senior officer. Later he was arrested and put in Dundalk prison. After the Civil War he started up his own printing company printing out newspapers such as the Catholic Herald and the United Irishmen.

My project was to do with my Grand-Aunt’s emigration to America in the 1950’s. The project is based on two interviews conducted over the phone with my Grand-Aunt about her experience with emigration, and life in Ireland before and after America. It is especially the story of how she came to work for the wife of David Rockefeller (Margaret "Peggy" Rockefeller, nee McGrath), doing secretarial work and helping with entertainment service in the evenings - which is how she met people like Aristotle Onassis and Picasso.

On 24 February 1943, a fire broke out in Cavan orphanage, and took the lives of 35 girls and one adult. For reasons explored in this project, a decision was taken not to evacuate the orphans, and they retreated to an upstairs dormitory. Attempts to put out the fire were in vain. As the fire took hold, escape through the main entrance of the building or the fire escape became impossible. Fire department ladders were not long enough and the girls were faced with the option of staying or jumping. Three girls jumped and sustained injuries. At the end of the night, eight more orphans were saved. This project explores whether the deaths could have been prevented.

The Eurovision international song contest has been going since 1956. Ireland has won the competition seven times, more than any other country. Not only that, but in 1994 Charlie McGettigan and Paul Harrington won with a song named Rock ‘n’ Roll Kids, making Ireland the first and only country to win three times in a row.

This project is about two Leitrim people's association and involvement with Eurovision: Charlie McGettigan's experience winning the Eurovision, and Cyril Smyth's experience as a juror. 

The Soloheadbeg ambush – often seen as the first engagement of the Irish War of Independence – took place on 21 January 1919, when members of the  –Irish Volunteers (or Irish Republican Army, IRA) ambushed Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) officers who were escorting a consignment of gelignite explosives at Soloheadbeg, County Tipperary. Two RIC officers were killed and their weapons and the explosives were seized: they were constables James McDonnell and Patrick O’Connell of the Royal Irish Constabulary. This project tells the story of James McDonnell’s death and his relationship to my family.

It is about a composition that my Dad's neighbour wrote about haymaking from the 1930’s school folklore collection. It was a composition about what the day was like. Everyone came outside including neighbours to help each other. The neighbour they helped would repay them by making them dinner that evening after working all day. They then did the same until all the neighbours hay was ready for the winter.

The project describes  the folklore collection and  haymaking in the 1930’s – how they did it, what tools they used and what it was like making hay back then.

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