The Open Scholarship Community Galway (OSCG) and the NUI Galway Library presented a talk where we heard from members of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home Oral History Project on the topic of Open Oral History.
Founded by Dr. Sarah-Anne Buckley and Dr. John Cunningham, the project collects and records oral history from survivors of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, as well as personal archival documents shared by survivors. The archive will be preserved and hosted online by the Hardiman Library.
Dr Cunningham started the session with a short talk on: Introduction and Overview: Tuam Oral History Project. Mary Cunningham and Dr Houlihan then discussed the methodology and ethical practices of conducting these interviews and their sharing online through an Open Access Oral History Archive.
Information about speakers:
Mary Cunningham: ‘Collecting the life stories of the Tuam Survivors’
- Mary Cunningham is a former school principal and occasional lecturer in special education. During her career, she became interested in the history of special needs education, playing a leading role in an oral history project on her own school in 2014. She was involved in the development of the Tuam ‘Home’ Oral History Project, for which she commenced carrying out interviews in 2019.
Dr John Cunningham
- Dr John Cunningham is a lecturer in History at NUI Galway, a former editor of Saothar: Journal of Irish Labour History, and co-PI with Sarah-Anne Buckly, of the Tuam Oral History Project’ Widely published on institutional history, social protest, labour biography, and Irish local history, his book (with Ciaran McDonough) entitled Hardiman and Beyond: The Arts and Culture in Galway, 1820-2020 is due from Arden soon.
Dr. Barry Houlihan: 'Archiving Oral History'