Lighting a fire of memories collecting

If passion is the igniter of enthusiasm in others, then Dr Kelly Fitzgerald may have set a folklore collecting wildfire through Kildare by her presentation at Saturday's 'Save Our Stories' seminar in Kilcullen, writes Brian Byrne.

A cross-section of local historians, writers, and other interested people from throughout Kildare attended the event, which launched the oral history project as part of the Kildare Heritage Plan introduced in 2005.

The idea is to gather the oral stories of people in Kildare in a coordinated programme running through to next April, which will include training local 'collectors' in the use of modern recording equipment and teaching them interviewing techniques.

Recordings made will become part of a special repositary in the Kildare Library & Arts Service HQ in Newbridge and will be available to researchers and interested members of the public. A limited run CD of selected and edited stories will also be produced next summer as part of the initiative.

Nessa Dunlea of the Kilcullen Heritage Group will be training as a 'collector' in the programme, which begins on Saturday 3 November in McAuley Place in Naas.

Saturday's event, organised by Kildare County Council's Heritage Officer, Bridget Loughlin, introduced the tutors for the programme, Dr Kelly Fitzgerald and Gillian Boland, both of whom have extensive experience in the oral history field.

Dr Fitzgerald outlined how recording people's stories and memories adds a potentially much deeper element to social history, often resulting in a more intense perspective than written accounts.

She cited the work of Seosamh O Dalaigh of the Irish Folklore Commission, one of a number of collectors who recorded the memories of people in the west of Ireland, notably those of Peig Sayers of the Blasket Islands. While many of the wax cylinder recordings used in the early days were 'scraped' for reuse after being transcribed, those still surviving are currently being digitised in UCD.

To illustrate how spoken words can provide an emotional and personal perspective to relatively recent historic events, Dr Kelly played two clips. One was a 1980 recording of Dublin man Liam Carey, talking about his uncle who was one of Michael Collins's 'Twelve Apostles' assasination team. The other was Lily Keegan, who at the age of 13 couriered messages between anti-British freedom fighters.

"Quite often it is the people around a subject that give the most interesting perspectives," she noted, adding that collecting stories and memories now will provide a 'rich' source for future historians.

Gillian Boland, who worked on a Millennium oral history project in Britain among the various Housing Associations, provided an outline of the training and collecting programme envisaged under the 'Save Our Stories' initiative.

It will include teaching participants interview techniques, how to listen, and how to deal with sensitive subjects. There will also be a module on copyright, an important issue where the repositary of recordings may be used in a number of ways. "Copyright is a difficult issue, given the rapid changes in the technologies of today," Ms Boland commented. "In some respects, we have to anticipate what's coming along in the future."

Training will also be given in the use of recording equipment, and a number of recorders have been acquired which can be made available on loan.

For anyone who wasn't able to make the seminar, but may be interested in taking part, a web page has been put in place at kildare.ie/saveourstories/ with full information and a downloadable application form.

Bridget Loughlin emphasised the support from the Kildare Leader Partnership, which is funding the project in its entirety.