Call for Papers: ‘Irish Blood, English Hearth: creativity, identity and the migrant Irish home’

We are welcoming papers for ‘Irish Blood, English Hearth: creativity, identity and the migrant Irish home’, a one-day symposium inspired by the Irish room that was launched at the Museum of the Home in 2024. The symposium is being co-organised with Anglia Ruskin Cambridge and Queen Mary University of London and will be held at the Museum on 1 April 2026. Professor Enda Delaney (University of Edinburgh) will deliver the keynote address.  

The symposium aims to shed light on the role of the home as a vital space for Irish diaspora culture in Britain. Such settings often afforded a space for migrants and their offspring to safely express Irish ethnicity. But they also served as a crucible for some of the most significant interventions in post-war British culture, not least in the spheres of music and performance.  

The symposium will address the significance of the home for Irish migrants and their children, exploring the diverse creative practices that took shape in – and emerged from – these domestic settings. We anticipate that this will include some reflection on the role of the second-generation Irish in (re)shaping popular culture in post-war Britain. We hope that the symposium will bring together scholars, journalists and creative practitioners to consider these themes.  

Please send proposals (a 200-word abstract and short biography) to Prof Sean Campbell (sean.campbell@aru.ac.uk) by 11:59pm on Friday 30 January 2026.