CQAF 2026 Early-bird Shows

Due to demand, this show has moved venue to The Black Box, Hill Street, Belfast City Centre. 

Join us for a lunchtime talk by Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick, authors of the number 1 bestselling book, Bad Bridget: Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women.” Hear about women’s experiences of poverty and hardships, their criminal escapades, and their defiance and resistance on the streets and courtrooms of nineteenth and early-twentieth-century New York, Boston and Toronto.

Leanne McCormick is Professor of Modern Irish History at Ulster University, and co-chair of the Independent Truth Recovery Panel for Northern Ireland.

Elaine Farrell is Professor of Irish History at Queen’s University Belfast and is currently writing a book on secrets in nineteenth-century Ireland.

Together they lead the Bad Bridget project, which focuses on Irish women in North America who found themselves on the wrong side of the law in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The project includes a popular podcast starring Siobhán McSweeney, a #1 best-selling book, Bad Bridget: Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women (Penguin Sandycove, 2023), and an exhibition at the Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh (2022-2026).

Also available via Zoom, if you would like to access the talk via Zoom, you can purchase tickets here:

https://cliftonhousebelfast.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/873682367