2015 Press Releases
Cork life in 1916?
What do the letters of 1916 reveal about life in Cork in that period? Local communities around Ireland are invited to have their 1916 family letters digitised for posterity
So far over 2,300 letters have been digitised and this Thursday (26 Nov), UCC’s School of History will host the project in the Boole Library on campus from 2pm-8.30pm. The public are welcome to bring any letters they have from that period or simply drop-in at any stage during the free event and hear what the Cork letters say about life in the city and county.
‘Letters of 1916’ is Ireland’s first public humanities project. It is creating a crowdsourced digital collection of letters written between 1 November 1915 and 31 October 1916. To date it has collected over 2,300 letters from over 20 institutions and 40 private collections. These letters cover a variety of topics ranging from the Easter Rising to art, culture, family life and the Great War. Through these letters the project is bringing to life the written words, the last words, the unspoken words and the forgotten words of that momentous year in Irish history. It is creating an online collection for the public, created by the public, which is adding a new perspective to life in this period, a confidential glimpse into the public and private worlds of early twentieth century Ireland.
Happening this Thursday in the Boole Library - something to keep history buffs happy https://t.co/RkdWDf3oa5
— UCC Ireland (@UCC)
November 24, 2015
Professor Susan Schreibman and the project team from NUI Maynooth invite the people of Cork to be a part of this unique research process by contributing to this crowdsourced history project and to learn about how a digital archive is created. Thursday 26 November.
From 2.00pm in the Research Skills Teaching Room of the Boole Library, the project team will be doing a hands-on workshop with intermittent pop-up talks by Daniel Breen (Cork Public Museum) and Brian McGee (Cork City and County Archives). This will be followed by refreshments in the UCC Staff Dining Room and then, in the Boole II lecture theatre, a series of short talks by Susan Schreibman (Editor-in-chief of Letters of 1916), Gabriel Doherty and John Borgonovo (both UCC School of History), and Helene O’Keeffe (St. Angela’s College) based on letters from Cork, illuminating both everyday life as well as how individuals dealt with momentous events of the period.
For further details please see www.letters1916.ie, email letters1916@gmail.com, Twitter @letters1916, Facebook Letters of 1916, or contact Gabriel Doherty, School of History, University College Cork, 021- 4902783.