The HEA Women in Irish Society Project is based on a collaborative relationship between the Departments of English, Sociology, and Applied Social Studies at NUI Cork. The three interactive research projects seek to illuminate the transformation of women's lives in Irish society over time and place, through literary, sociological and applied social research. The research programme has been developed in direct partnership with the Boole Library at NUI Cork, which houses the Attic Press Archive containing key documents of the Irish Women's Movement.

In addition to our research agenda, the projects have also held feminist research seminars in here at NUI Cork, and international conferences, as well as working closely with postgraduate students across our three departments and in Women's Studies.  The projects have now entered their final stage, and the project findings will be represented in a month-long exhibition held at the Boole Library, NUI Cork throughout February which is open to the public. Project presentations outlining our findings will be held at NUI Cork on St. Brigid's Day, 1^st Feb., and will be followed by the formal launch of the WISP exhibition.

Project Members: Dr. Linda Connolly, Prof. Patricia Coughlan, Ms. Elizabeth Kiely, Dr. Máire Leane, Dr. Tina O'Toole, and Dr. Éibhear Walshe

The Irish Women's Movement Project, based in the Sociology Department, conducted a survey of materials relating to the second-wave Irish women's movement.
The material in the Irish Women's Movement Archive at NUI Cork, and a range of other sources including those listed in the Irish Women's History Project (http://www.nationalarchives.ie/wh) formed the basis for our study. The research carried out in this project - a documentary history of the second-wave Irish Women's Movement - will be published by Woodfield Press later this year. A detailed bibliography of secondary material relating to women and Irish society is currently available on our website.  Documents and photographs from the IWM archive will form part of the WISP exhibition, alongside an exhibition of activist photographs from the 1970s and 1980s by Clodagh Boyd.
On April 4^th and 5th, the IWM Project will host a symposium on feminist research at NUI Cork, in conjunction with Women's Studies and WERRC, UCD, at which Sandra Harding will be the keynote speaker.

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The Oral History Project based in the Department of Applied Social Studies has resulted in the collection of over 40 oral history interviews with women residing in the Munster counties of Cork, Limerick and Kerry.  These interviews provide rich ethnographic accounts of women's experiences of diverse kinds of waged work and other associate issues launch of the exhibition. It is anticipated that in the very near future, the data will be stored in an archive in the library in NUI Cork where it will be for the period of the 1940s and the 50s.  The WISP exhibition will showcase a selection of audio and visual data gathered over the course of the project. The women who volunteered to have their stories recorded will attend the launch of the exhibition. It is anticipated that in the very near future, the data will be stored in an archive in the library in UCC where it will be accessible to other scholars.

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The Munster Women Writers Project, based in the English Department, is a bibliographical research project.  The project will publish a dictionary of Munster Women Writers 1800-2000 as a searchable, online database, and also in hardcover.  The database, which contains material relating to over three hundred writers, provides material on the biographies and published work of a range of writers, both in English and Irish.  By making available the basic materials for scholarly research in this field, the project aims to help generate critical analysis of the role of regional, class and gender factors in the formation of writers, and the intersection of these factors in the nature of the work produced.  We will exhibit documents, books, and visual material relating to a selected number of writers as part of the WISP exhibition, and will also have a copy of the MWW searchable database available on computer.

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So, if you are in, or plan to be in Cork during February, why not stop by the Boole Library in the Main Quad of the university, and see the WISP Exhibition for yourself?