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Luton Irish Forum
Newsletter
February 2006 – Issue 1
Happy New Year and welcome to the first bi-monthly newsletter of the Luton Irish Forum, which will be available free at the Luton Irish Forum and various locations to let everyone know what the forum and other Irish organisations are up to.

A brief History of the Luton Irish Forum- Origins, Aims, Aspirations.
Concerned that the Irish community in Luton had no effective voice in their adopted town. A group of prominent Luton Irish People, at the suggestion of Margaret Moran then Prospective Parliamentary candidate for Luton South met and decided to do something about it. The inaugural meeting of the Luton Irish Forum was held at the Houses of Parliament. Amongst the founder members were Seamus Mernagh Chairperson, John Manning Secretary, Billy Griffin Treasurer, Professor John Brannigan, then Head of Humanities, University of Luton, John Hutcheson, Frank Horan, John McCaffrey, Joe Ward, Tom and Francis Bourke. Our motto was “A voice for the Irish in Luton”.

Eventually all our meetings took place in the Town Hall, monthly meetings in one of the committee rooms and a Social Morning was held every Saturday in the Small Assembly Rooms. Late in 2000 we moved to our present home at the Hightown Recreation Centre, courtesy of the Luton Borough Council. With a combination of our own fundraising activities grants from various statutory bodies we refurbished our new home to its present condition.

A large part of the forums work is to relieve persons in need, poverty or distress, particularly, but not exclusively of Irish decent, through provision of advice and information concerning health and benefits as well as other support.
We have been able to achieve this by accessing grants from a numbers of sources. In particular Luton and Dunstable Partnership Single Regeneration Budget, the Irish Government Dion Grant also from a number of statutory bodies. In the early days this was achieved solely by volunteers. However these grants have enabled us to employ a development worker, a senior advice worker and an advice and outreach worker. A research project, by Rehab UK was undertaken in 2004 to identify the needs of the Irish Community in the Luton and Dunstable area and a summary can be found on page 2.

Our second sphere of activity is to promote our Culture and Heritage throughout the Luton and Dunstable area. Our flagship programme has been the St Patrick’s Festival, which has grown in strength each year. As well as funding from Luton Borough Council Arts development and our own fundraising a large amount of funding for the festival is raised through sponsorship from the Irish Business Community. For a peek at what to expect from this years festival see page 2.

The forum is now looking forward to the future and has started and the process of becoming a charitable company, a legal entity in its own right. Also the prospect of a new home is on the horizon as a serious negotiations continue to relocate the forum due to the closing down of the Hightown Recreation centre so watch this space.

Luton Irish Forum is a registered charity 1085786