Anna Marie Acosta Joe Seletski Kristen Butke Zagorski Ilish McKenna Eddie Murphy Meg Comisky
Musicians
Jimmy Butke Beth Nist Mike Shaffer Dave Yates
West Virginia Feis - March 25
Bell Feis - March 26
Tessie Burke Reel Feis - July 15
Tessie Burke Jig Feis - July 16
Pittsburgh Feis - September 23
Pittsburgh Fall Feis - September 24
Pittsburgh Winter Feis - December 30 and 31
Please follow the Bell School Facebook page for updates on our Sister Feis!
Dutch Country Feis - Friday June 23 and Saturday June 24 in Lancaster PA hosted by the Paloma School of Irish Dance
Registration on FeisWeb
On March 25 2023, the Martin McHugh Scholarship Award will presented. This scholarship was established in 2006 by Jim Graven as Chairman of the West Virginia Feis. It is awarded each year to an Irish step dancer from the Pittsburgh Area. It was created in honor of Martin McHugh, a dedicated father of a step dancer and tireless feis volunteer. Marty passed away in January 2006 at the age of 47.
An
Iarmhí, Westmeath, translates as “west of the middle”. The county is
nicknamed the Lake County. The county
motto is “Noble above Nobility”.
From Civil
Rights to Hunger Strikes 1968-1981
Thursdays 7:30 - 9pm – Feb
2, 9, 16, 23
Following the partition of Ireland
in 1922 Ulster Unionists/ Loyalists were
empowered to build the institutions of a new state designed to ensure their
ongoing control. They marginalized the nationalist community, the progressive
labor movement, and those unionists not committed to the realization of a
sectarian state.
The new devolved administration controlled by the main
Unionist party, the Ulster unionist Party (UUP), ensured their control through
gerrymandering of constituencies; the use of Special Powers and the formation
of a sectarian police force; the use of social and economic policies designed in the interest of the majority unionist population; voting
rights that gave some people (mostly non Catholic} up to six votes, and gave no
vote to adults who did not own or rent property (mostly Catholics); exclusion
of the minority population from public service positions; and many other forms
of discrimination particularly in the areas of housing, education and
employment.
After World War 2 the UK government introduced reforms in
education and in the provision of welfare benefits. These played an important
part in radicalizing the generations of the 1950's and 1960's who sought to
bring change to their communities. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement
was a non-sectarian, peaceful movement that sought to reform the Unionist
state. Their efforts were met with violent resistance and a refusal to consider
any meaningful changes on the basis that such changes would undermine the
nature of the Unionist state. Reform was not an option.
The Civil Rights campaign and the support it received from
active nationalist communities was criminalized and attacked to the point that
nationalist areas had to rely on self-defense against drive-by shootings; bombings
and pogroms by loyalist gangs and paramilitaries; provocative and
discriminatory police raids; and after 1969 from British army activity.
By the late 1960's the IRA had been weakened to the point
that it had little capability to effectively defend nationalist communities. As
in 1935, Nationalists realized that they had to rely solely on themselves. The British army, the Northern police forces,
and the Republic of Ireland government were not going to help them. One of the
main supports for the nationalist community and activists came from the
examples set by the Civil Rights Movement in the USA, the anti-Apartheid movement,
the Palestinian Liberation Movement, and the anti-Vietnam War Movement.
The efforts of the Unionist state and the British government
and army to repress the resistance in nationalist areas and the refusal to make
any meaningful reforms was the reason why yet another devastating war had to be
fought against the century’s old imposition of foreign rule on the people of
Ireland by a foreign government and its local allies.
To enroll, email seanmurphy630@gmail.com Course fee: $90
