Folklore schools 1937-38

Abstract

This paper reports on the Folklore Schools 1937-38 project which was conducted as part of the UCD Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive (IVRLA) series of demonstrator research projects. The purpose of this project was to begin to catalogue, number, and conserve the primary school copybooks entrusted to the National Folklore Collection under the 1937-38 Schools’ Scheme, a nationwide scheme which encouraged sixth class students to write essays on varied folklore topics over an eighteen-month period. The remit of the IVRLA demonstrator projects was to provide digital research resources and to show how digital repositories could not only provide access to archival research materials but could also present material in new ways and suggest themes for further research. This project fulfils this remit by making available a catalogue (in excel format) containing details of all the copybooks examined during this project as well as provisional details of the remaining copybooks in the collection. Sample scanned material also acts as a capsule exhibition for the many thousands of copybooks submitted from children across Ireland. The paper gives an overview of the 1937-38 Schools’ Scheme, details the work involved in creating the catalogue and conserving the copybooks, and concludes with suggestions as to how further cataloguing and digitisation work could facilitate greater access to this significant national resource.