{"id":6841,"date":"2016-01-22T12:43:56","date_gmt":"2016-01-22T12:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/?p=6841"},"modified":"2018-07-10T17:13:08","modified_gmt":"2018-07-10T17:13:08","slug":"profile-therese-mcintyre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/profile-therese-mcintyre","title":{"rendered":"Profile: Th\u00e9r\u00e8se McIntyre"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Th\u00e9r\u00e8se<\/a><\/p>\n

Th\u00e9r\u00e8se McIntyre is the presenter of \u2018Herosongs: \u00a0Where History and Song Meet\u2019, an AthenaMedia Production for RTE Radio 1 as well as being a key member of the Oral History Network of Ireland<\/a> (OHNI).\u00a0Th\u00e9r\u00e8se told us about her involvement with the Letters of 1916<\/i><\/a> project.<\/p>\n

\n

Years ago, I remember when the National Library of Ireland<\/a> (NLI) had posted on social media a letter that they had acquired for their collections. It was a seven-page \u2018note\u2019 from Special Constable William Samuel to his mother in Ireland that described the events on the day that the Manchester Martyrs were hanged. \u00a0As a researcher, I\u2019ve always had a fascination with \u2018first-hand\u2019 accounts \u2013 letters, diaries, travelogues \u2013 particularly with examining how these marry with the more formalised versions of academic History. What struck me most, however, about the NLI\u2019s publishing of this letter in such a public forum, was that they were looking for assistance from the general public in order to transcribe it; it was probably the first time that I became aware of the term \u2018crowdsourcing\u2019. When I first heard about the \u2018Letters<\/a>\u2019 Project, I started to follow it with a keen interest, not only because of the rare material that it would make available online, but because it was an opportunity to allow the public to engage with historical materials, the methods of creating metadata, and the process of digitisation. \u00a0I was delighted to be asked to collaborate with \u2018Letters\u2019 for their pre-launch showcase in Galway<\/a>, as it is one of the pioneering projects of this type and it opens so many doors to further scholarship on 1916.<\/p>\n

What excites me about \u2018Letters<\/a>\u2019 is the potential that it has in changing perceptions about oral history. \u00a0While it may seem an oxymoron to refer to written materials as \u2018oral history\u2019, I strongly believe that there is a case for examining ephemera, such as letters, as \u2018oral\u2019 data. \u00a0Letters, after all, tell stories \u2013 they are narratives. \u00a0They are also one-half of a conversation \u2013 things that would be said between people were they in the same room \u2013 albeit in written form. \u00a0And, more often than not, they are emotive \u2013 they convey not only information, but sentiment, how people \u2018felt\u2019, rather than simply presenting the cold, hard \u2018facts\u2019 of History. \u00a0Letters are the \u2018voices\u2019 of the past\u2026ink and paper the primitive \u2018recorder\u2019. These days I consider myself a bit of a \u2018failed\u2019 historian because my research, which primarily concerns songs and ballads, has made me re-think the traditional historian\u2019s view that \u2018facts\u2019 are the core of an accepted narrative of a particular event; essentially, History from the \u2018top, down\u2019. \u00a0\u2018Letters\u2019 gives researchers, both academic and independent, the opportunity to scrutinise more closely History from the \u2018bottom, up\u2019 \u2013 the \u2018grassroots\u2019 version of events \u2013 which, although sometimes lacking in \u2018facts\u2019, nevertheless, has scholarly value in chronicling the \u2018People\u2019s\u2019 History.<\/p>\n

\"courtesy<\/a>
courtesy of the National Archives of Ireland, NAI\/CSO\/RP\/1916\/5611\/8356\/3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The \u2018Letters<\/a>\u2019 Project contributes not only a more extensive view of the key events of 1916 to Irish History, but also provides valuable source material for other historically-based disciplines \u00a0\u2013 social, geographical, economic, oral \u2013 as well as other areas of scholarship such as memory studies. \u00a0The digitisation of the materials guarantees that, while the physical letters may not survive the test of time, there will be a permanent record of these often personal pieces of memorabilia. \u00a0The model of the \u2018Letters<\/a>\u2019 Project serves as a blueprint from which, hopefully, other projects will be developed. \u00a0The possibilities, in terms of creating online archives, digitising rare and fragile materials, bridging the gap between \u2018formal\u2019 and informal\u2019 histories, and connecting people in a very real way with their national history, are only limited by the amount of cloud space available. \u00a0So far\u2026so good\u2026<\/p>\n

\n

If you want to get in touch with Th\u00e9r\u00e8se, you can find her on Twitter: @cailinrua1<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Th\u00e9r\u00e8se McIntyre is the presenter of \u2018Herosongs: \u00a0Where History and Song Meet\u2019, an AthenaMedia Production for RTE Radio 1 as well as being a key member of the Oral History Network of Ireland (OHNI).\u00a0Th\u00e9r\u00e8se told us about her involvement with Continue reading Profile: Th\u00e9r\u00e8se McIntyre<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[274,7],"tags":[245],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6841"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6844,"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6841\/revisions\/6844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}