PHOTOS – Hands in Harmony Deaf Community Choir Family Fun Day

Hands in Harmony Deaf Community Choir Family Fun Day at the Hunt Museum, Limerick.
The Hands in Harmony Deaf Community Choir Family Fun Day took place on Saturday, June 18 in Limerick’s famous Hunt Museum. Following on from last year’s inaugural and highly successful event this was the second Deaf Community Centre Family Fun Day.

Included throughout the Family Fun Day were guided tours of the Hunt Museum, sign language interpreters were provided to make the tours accessible for all. Many activities and stalls were present on the day which included: games, face painting, nail art, a cake stall, craft fair, bouncy castle, an Irish Sign Language (ISL) awareness information stall, a raffle and much more that kept families entertained for the day. Expectations were high for the second Family Fun Day organised by the ‘Hands in Harmony’ choir and those in attendance were not disappointed.

The highlight of the Limerick Deaf Community Centre Family Fun Day was the two performances from the unique ‘Hands in Harmony’ Deaf Community Choir, made up of Deaf and hearing people signing their songs through ISL. The choir performed songs such as ‘I will Survive’ and ‘Make you Feel my Love’.

This Deaf choir is the first of its kind in the Mid-West Area. It was formed in October 2014 and has performed in a number of churches and events in Limerick, and have been special guests at events such as Prosperous Music Festival, Kildare, Gospel Rising, Glor Ennis, and more recently, the Mayo International Choral Festival.

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Hands in Harmony Deaf Community Choir Family Fun Day at the Hunt Museum. Picture by Cian Reinhardt

The Deaf Community Centre is based in Limerick, it supports Deaf people and their families to improve skills, by way of courses and workshops and supports the community in issues that affect them. Many Deaf people are spread out in the wider area of Limerick, Clare and Tipperary and they rely on the Centre as a place to meet friends and be part of the community that is so important to them, it is open and welcoming to all.

In recent years, Deaf people have sought a number of changes to issues that affect them, particularly in the area of services that are delivered by the state.

A good example of this is children with hearing loss and deaf children; they can now be educated locally with many supports having been developed over the last number of years. As well as Sign Language classes being provided throughout the mid-west so that the hearing population can attend classes and learn Irish Sign Language.

The aim of  the Deaf Community Centre Family Fun Day to start a new wave of public support for the Deaf community and to show how members of the Deaf community play a full role in their wider community, this was also an opportunity to promote Irish Sign Language – aiming to create awareness and therefore empower Deaf people to encourage the Government to recognise Irish Sign Language as an official language of the state, the natural language of the Deaf community – making it equal in the eyes of the state is accepting its importance in line with other languages.

We are thrilled to announce that ‘Hands in Harmony’ are performing after this year’s Limerick Pride Parade at the Hunt Museum for the PrideFest party on Saturday, July 16. This year’s Pride theme is #UnitedColoursofLimerick and they will bring something original and special to this year’s festivities.

You can find more information on the Deaf Community here.
If you want to read more about the Deaf Community Centre, you can find more stories here.

Pictures by Cian Reinhardt/ilovelimerick

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