Are you over 70 and a member of a Protestant faith tradition? Would you like to contribute your experience, opinions and stories to the National Folklore Collection’s Protestant Folk Memory Project in UCD?

No matter what your job, farm size or occupation, Dr Criostoir MacCarthaigh, acting director of the archive, and researcher Dr Deirdre Nuttall, are asking for your help to get a fuller picture of the story of Irish society.

A questionnaire will be sent out to anyone interested in having their views put on record, anonymously or otherwise, for posterity.

ADVERTISEMENT

“There was, in many senses, a vacuum in the collection taken up by the Folklore Commission in the 1930s,” Dr MacCarthaigh says.

“Protestant cultural history really didn’t figure. That’s why we want to add to the national folklore collection and gather in as much of that social history as we conceivably can.

“We’d particularly like to talk to people aged 70-plus who are the sons and daughters of people who lived through the 1916-1922 period,” he explains.

“We’re also strongly interested in material culture: traditions, lifestyle, how people lived, how they farmed, about dominant trades and occupations.

“We would like to talk to Protestants from all walks of life. There is a certain assumption in the wider community that if you were Protestant, you were wealthy – but this certainly was not the case.

“As well as attitudes to historical events there are questions about daily lifestyles, education, religious practice, traditions and beliefs, participation in sport, socialising, celebrations of festivals, Easter and Harvest. It’s important to record any slight differences or individual festivals that were unique to Protestants in Ireland,” Dr MacCarthaigh explains.

Confidentiality will be respected, he says: “We have a duty of care to those who respond and we can anonymise material if necessary or hold it back for a period of time, for example.”

Dr Nuttall, the main researcher behind the project, says: “We were aware that the national collection as it stands doesn’t really represent the whole spectrum of traditions in the 26 counties. We want to get a real picture of what Irish life was like and the diversity within it.

“I think one of the big problems was that because Protestants were on average better off, people who didn’t fit that bill – that is, Protestants who weren’t well off – tended to get overlooked. This research will redress that, among other things and help to complete our national narrative.”

The National Folklore Collection would be very pleased to meet respondents, if they wish, and make an audio recording of their contribution to the Irish Protestant Folk Memory Project.

To request a questionnaire see: www.ucd.ie/irishfolklore/en. Email: bealoideas@ucd.ie. Write to National Folklore Collection, John Henry Newman Building, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4. Or telephone (01) 716 8216. CL