More than 200 schools in County Cavan and over 70 schools in County Longford took part, resulting in a combined total of 85 manuscript books full of folk legends, weather lore, local history, proverbs, pastimes, trades and crafts... all collected from the children's local communities. Each entry records the name of the student's informant – typically grandparents or older members of their family or neighbours.
The Cavan and Longford stories join folklore material already online from counties Dublin, Mayo, Donegal, Waterford, Galway, Leitrim, Kildare, Kerry, Sligo, Limerick, Monaghan, Laois, Kilkenny, Louth, Tipperary and Clare. Material from the remaining eight counties is scheduled to be online by the end of this year.
When the three-year digitisation project ends, the online Schools' Collection will consists of over half a million pages recorded by around 50,000 primary school pupils in the 26 counties.