This Networks of Archives award seeks to identify a collective with demonstrable collaboration and co-operation with a wide range of partner groups that share best practice and resources and introduce effective communication that furthers the aims of the network. The awards themselves are organised and judged by the CAHG, a special interest section of the Archives & Records Association (UK & Ireland), the sector's main professional and membership body.
The Irish Community Archive Network is still expanding but is currently comprised of 28 online archives reflecting local history and heritage collections of communities in Counties Mayo, Galway, Clare and Wicklow. Six new Wicklow-based archives came on stream during the summer (see blogpost).
OurIrishHeritage is the online home of iCAN. The site invites readers to share photographs, memories, folklore, family histories, personal stories, historical documents and research, and aims to create 'A people's history of Ireland', with information that would otherwise not be documented or readiy accessible, particularly for communities overseas.
With much of Ireland’s material and intangible cultural heritage in the care and ownership of its citizens and diaspora, iCAN is empowering local communities to document their own history, heritage and culture on digital platforms. They are proving to be extremely popular locally, nationally and globally, with visits to the network’s archive websites growing year on year. Since 2011, the site has attracted six million page views from all over the world, with 1.5 million of these in the last 12 months alone.
If you haven't dipped into the OurIrishHeritage site before, do so today. All the groups that make up the network are listed on the landing page (click image above) or you can search by place, people and topic, here.