History and local traditions of Cork citizens to be preserved in online archive

Bere Island Community Archive is one of four Cork community groups to join the

Bere Island Community Archive is one of four Cork community groups to join the programme to help communities preserve their local history. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

The lives and history of some of Cork's citizens and their local traditions are set to be preserved in a special archive on a community platform that will be accessible all over the world.

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Photographs, documents, personal stories, and traditions are being stored on a database after four historical groups around Cork were the latest to join the national online digital hub.

It is part of a network programme that was developed by the National Museum of Ireland in 2009, which is now funded by the Heritage Council of Ireland to help communities preserve their local history.

Cork County Council has signed up to the Irish Community Archive Network (iCAN).

Speaking at the event at the Brockagh Resource Centre in Laragh, Co Wicklow, Conor Nelligan, Co Cork heritage officer, said the initiative would help people all over the world with their personal history.

He told the Irish Examiner: "This is a very important project. We have so much history in Cork, that includes not just personal stories, but 19,000 archaeological monuments and more than 3,000 protected structures as well as two Gaeltacht areas. There is heritage relating to that heritage and this is a great way to capture it."

The iCAN project currently has 33 online digital archives in Clare, Galway, Mayo, Wicklow and, more recently, Cork — which is managed by 180 volunteers.

Cork community groups

The four community groups from Cork chosen to join the initiative include Bere Island Community Archive, Kilmurry Archive, Kilshannig Heritage and Youghal Community Archive.

Mr Nelligan continued: "Each group will work on their own archives. The Cork groups are up and running now. There is funding too which is relatively recent. It includes traditions, cultures and personal stories as well as stories of the landscapes.

"You could apply for roughly around €1,000 a year, for something like equipment — it just depends on the programme."

Helen Riddell works with the Bere Island Community Archive, one of the new groups that successfully applied for the scheme.

She said, "I work on the conservation plan which was put in place on Bere Island 20 years ago and we helped create employment and tourism.

"I get all sorts of queries, for example, from the diaspora who are trying to trace their families, there is so much involved. We are restoring the old military base there also — it's our Spike island and I’m involved in the restoration of that and now we are recording our oral history of the island.

"It is a way of preserving our heritage in an archive which, up until now, were stored in various archives but this gets it out to everyone on one platform and it encourages people to send us on their stories so we can record and preserve them."

Funding comes from the National Museum of Ireland along with supporting local authorities. The Heritage Council of Ireland recently joined as a funding partner and the conference heard the agency's annual budget has grown from €5m in 2019 to €18m in 2023.

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History and local traditions of Cork citizens to be preserved in online archive