Featured photographer

Corinne Silva

Emigration is a common theme throughout Irish history; one that has touched almost every family in Ireland. Until recently thousands of people found work in Britain’s major industrial centres. For a large proportion of people leaving County Mayo in the west of Ireland, the Yorkshire city of Leeds was their chosen destination.

Today the Leeds-Irish population measures around 20,000. Although Ireland now enjoys a booming economy, for many Irish in Britain a mixture of family ties, economic dependence and prolonged absence means that whilst Ireland is still ‘home’, the imagined permanent return is often an impossibility.

Róisín Bán (pronounced Rosheen Bawn) is a series of documentary images, illustrating the lives of three generations of people – both in Leeds and returned emigrants in County Mayo. These images offer an insight into the experience of being a part of an ‘invisible’ minority, the global Irish diaspora.

Related Link: www.corinnesilva.com

Róisín Bán.
'John O'Dwyer with his sons Declan, Finnan and Cieran' 2005.