Dúchas.ie is an ongoing project to digitise the National Folklore collection of Ireland (NFC), one of the largest folklore collections in the world. Basically the objective of the project is to initiate this digitisation so that, by the end of 2016:
(i) the public will have access to material from the Collection (a significant portion of the Schools’ Collection) on the public website (www.duchas.ie) and
(ii) a data management system will be available for NFC to which other material can be added in future.
On the website, you can look for stories related to specific people, including the storytellers, children and teachers involved in the collection.
You can also search stories based on their broad topic area.
It is also possible to find stories collected in a particular area, or stories related to a place of interest, using the interactive map.
The Schools’ Collection consists of approximately 740,000 pages (288,000 pages in the pupils’ original exercise books; 451,000 pages in bound volumes) of folklore and local tradition compiled by pupils from 5,000 primary schools in the Irish Free State between 1937 and 1939.
Users of the site are invited to transcribe, on a voluntary basis, the stories that were collected as part of the Schools’ Collection. This provides an opportunity to help with the dissemination of this valuable material and to obtain a deeper insight into the Schools’ Collection. If you are a teacher or lecturer the NFC would be delighted to see this facility used in the classroom.