The MultiText Project is the largest and most ambitious project undertaken by any Irish university to provide quality resources for students of Irish History at all levels - University students, the general reader, and especially second-level students. Based in the Department of History, UCC, it is directed by Professor Donnchadh Ó Corráin (also Director of the ArCH & CELT projects). The texts are written by leading scholars, national and international. The project has a strong North-South profile and it fully meets the guidelines set down by the Department of Education for the revised Leaving Certificate History Curriculum (2004), and much more besides.

Professor Donnchadh Ó Corráin explains that the project responds to the political, social, economic  and cultural situation of Ireland and its international environment, all of which have been transformed in the past two decades. According to Professor Ó Corráin  the old nationalist model that lay at the heart of much history teaching is no longer adequate in a world where aspirations are internationalist, democratic, egalitarian, multi-racial and human-rights oriented.

"Academic research in Irish history has made great strides in the decades" says Professor Ó Corráin.  "These new texts integrate the latest research into teaching," he says.  Dramatic changes in information technology, particularly in multi-media have opened up new vistas in the presentation of research and in teaching and student enquiry.

The basic context of the project is the new Senior Cycle curriculum in History which covers a longer period than previously, 1815 to 1995.  The new curriculum has moved beyond the traditional concentration on political history and introduces students to a great diversity of perspectives in considering the past:  social, economic, cultural and religious.  It trains students to apply the skills and methodologies used by professional historians through the use of  primary sources.  Thus, the project also serves the needs of University undergraduates at home and abroad and provides the general reader with primary sources and up-to-date historical interpretations.

MultiText will soon start publishing hard-copy versions of its books with Four Courts Press, Dublin. Of the six Modern Irish History volumes (covering the period 1815-1995), three have been completed and are now available to preview on the project website. The others are in an advanced state of preparation.

The Project was founded in 2000 by Professor Ó Corráin with a donation from the Foundation Office, UCC, but is now wholly sustained by private funding. "The support of RE/MAX and MultiText's Chairman, Mr Joseph Carey, has been crucial to the success of MultiText and has facilitated its expansion" said Professor Ó Corráin. "Mr Carey has been an outstanding patron of arts and humanities in UCC and Cork. He has also given generously of his time and resources to other charitable institutions in Cork and elsewhere. We are great indebted to him." Adds Mr Tomás O'Riordan (Project Manager).

Picture: Signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, London, December 1921

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