About the Bristol Irish Society
The Society was formed following a Public meeting in April 1989, the first Hon. Chairman was Donal Higgins and the first Hon. Sec. was Amelia Dunford, it was agreed that the Society’s Officers & Committee would be unpaid volunteers.
The Society acquired a small rented office in The Grove in 1990 and operated from there until 1993/4 when it was decided to close the office because of rising costs due to premises vandalism and other factors, since then, the Society has used facilities at St. Patrick’s parish for meetings.
The Society over the years has organized social events – dances, quiz nights and the like enabling Irish people in Bristol to get together. In 1991 the BIS entered a National Debating competition organized and sponsored by the Federation of Irish Societies and the Allied Irish Bank, the BIS team won – beating Liverpool Irish Society in the final. Irish Language Classes were organized and run by the Society for a period of 3 years and were quite well supported, however a series of events led to the discontinuation of this activity.
The BIS organized the first St. Patrick’s Parade in Bristol in the year 2000. Since then, this has become an annual event and led to the setting up of the Bristol St. Patrick’s Parade Society Ltd. in 2006.