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Malahide & the Schools’ Collection

Researchers for 20th century Ireland may be familiar with the Schools’ Collection, which can be viewed on Duchas.ie.

This project was run by the Irish Folklore Commission in primary schools between 1937-1939. It had a much higher uptake in rural and suburban areas than in the cities. Children were asked to collect a story from an older person in their community. They wrote it up in their very best handwriting and the books were preserved. They are all now digitised on the above site, and most are also transcribed as well. The story could be contributed to in Irish or English. I like this one collected by Peggy Farrell.

The stories have an immense range of topics: folklore, history, anecdotes, customs, family history. When I’m researching a family, I’ll often take a look to see if by chance someone contributed to the project.

I volunteer with the Malahide Historical Society. My hometown is a north county coastal village, which was popular with daytrippers in the 19th and 20th century once the train came in 1844. The 1930s stories present a very rural picture of the area, which is now a well-established large town in the suburbs of Dublin.

This year we ran a new version of the school project with 2 local schools in Malahide and neighbouring Portmarnock. Over 50 children contributed a story. Reflecting the happily more multi-cultural nation Ireland now is, we also had several stories from children whose origins are not Irish. On 8th October, I’ll be presenting a lecture on the old and new projects in St Sylvester’s Parish hall at 8pm. An exhibition of the best entries will be displayed in Malahide Library from 7th October for 2 weeks.

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