We (Srs. Eucharia Ryan & Mary Minogue) were asked to attend a conference/workshop conducted by the Oral History Network of Ireland as Sr. Angela Bugler felt this conference would have relevance to oral archives. This Oral History Network organisation was established recently to co-ordinate and strengthen the work of oral history practitioners and groups across the country. It developed from a summer school and symposium held at the University of Limerick in 2009/2010.

The conference took place in Kilkenny Castle towards the end of 2011. There were several speakers, a number of whom were history lecturers and collectors of folklore and culture. On Friday afternoon Catherine O’Connor who completed a PhD in University of Limerick and specialises in the area of oral history, gave a very interesting talk on conducting an interview. She stressed the importance of preparation, sensitivity and the questioning and listening process. Those of us involved in interviewing could have felt very proud of the tutoring we got when we started out, as Ms. O’Connor corroborated all we had been taught. She dwelt also on the ethics involved in interviewing and the necessity of a “consent form”.

Tomás Mac Conmara was our next speaker. He is the Founder and Project Co-Ordinator of “Cuimhneamh an Chláir” the Clare Oral History and Folklore Group and has been engaged in the preservation of Clare’s cultural heritage for many years.

He opened his talk with the following quote:  “When an elderly person dies a library is burnt”. The aim of his group is to record, collect, preserve and share the memories of Clare’s elderly people. In doing so they hope to stimulate increased accessibility, interest, and engagement in the traditions, customs and cultural heritage of Co Clare.  He stressed the urgency of the work, mindful that our current elderly population may represent the last link to an older way of life. All elderly people who are willing to offer their memories will be interviewed. Multi-thematic approaches are adopted as well as identifying interviewees across Clare. Tomás was enthusiastic, inspiring and an expert in his field who really conveyed the value of oral archiving to his listeners. He brought home to us the importance of oral archiving in our own Congregation so we hope that anyone who has a story to tell will be willing to preserve it in the Mercy Oral Archives.

The guest speaker at the Conference was Professor Alistair Thomson from Melbourne, Australia. He spent 22 years in England as Professor of Oral History at the University of Sussex. His knowledge and experience in oral history was phenomenal! He dwelt at length on how oral history can be used for research purposes. This was particularly relevant to PhD students who attended the conference not only from Ireland but from England, Wales and Europe. We met a lovely niece of Sr. Nora Marrinan’s there, Bridget Conneally who is working in oral archives in Bath.

The most engaging part of Professor Thomson’s talk was his recounting his own unique collaboration with four ordinary women who were British migrants to Australia.

His relationship with them was over a period of ten years. They recorded in intimate detail aspects of everyday life and women’s experience that are often lost to history. The women were extraordinary letter writers, family photographers and memoirists. The story of the four women is in book form: Moving Stories, An Intimate History of Four Women across Two Countries by Alistair Thomson and it is published  by Manchester University Press. The book reveals the experience of lived migration in the 1930’s illuminating the physical, emotional and mental journeys endured by these women. They look back over their lives and the dramatic transformations of self, family and society since the 1930’s.

We had many interesting talks from different speakers and at break-times we had the opportunity of meeting with other participants, some of whom were students, librarians and some with interest in oral history. The conference was quite intensive for the two days and unfortunately time did not allow us to savour the delights of Kilkenny city!

Eucharia Ryan rsm & Mary Minogue rsm
South Central Province