Thursday 16 June 2016

County Meath material joins online Schools Collection

Schools Collection material from County Meath has been uploaded to the online database of the National Folklore Collection: DĂșchas.ie.

Nearly 120 schools in County Meath took part in the original project which saw schoolchildren across all 26 counties of Ireland collect and record all manner of folklore, local history, and other stories from the older members of their families and communitites back in 1937-39. Meath's contribution to the scheme resulted in the compilation of 37 volumes of stories.

These are now online and are free to access, along with material from Counties Dublin, Cavan, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Clare, Donegal, Galway, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Monaghan, Sligo, Tipperary, Waterford.

Material from the remaining seven counties is scheduled to be uploaded before the end of the year. When the entire Schools Collection is online, more than half a million pages of folklore stories and observations from c50,000 schoolchildren will be available to the public. Each story carries the name, address and age of the 'informant', providing useful records for genealogists.