The Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) is delighted to announce the ingest of materials from the Reconstituting the Irish Family Research Network (RIFNET) in the Repository. This collection forms part of the wider RIFNET project where academic researchers as well as museum and heritage professionals engaged in a retelling of the story of the Irish family.
Integral to RIFNET was the championing of stories and experiences of the Irish family outside of what society perceives as the ‘traditional’ form. Network members have expertise in a range of areas including: step-families and blended families, LGBTQ+ families, single-parent families, divorced – and widowed spouses, sibling networks, Travellers’ and their families as well as religious families.
Project Co-PI, Dr Maeve O’Riordan had the following to say about the project and collection ingest to DRI:
“We are delighted to see a permanent record of LGBTQ+ families in Ireland in the Digital Repository of Ireland. It is so important to broaden our understanding of family and to explore how love can be practised in different ways.”
In 2022, the interdisciplinary RIFNET research team teamed up with the National Museum of Ireland to host a digital storytelling event, ‘ReCollecting the Irish Family’. Here, members of the public were invited to tell their stories through family objects. They were then interviewed about the objects to explore the meaning of LGBTQ+ families in Ireland today.
These object-based interviews make an important contribution to the meaning of family in Ireland, illustrating the complexities and spectrum of lived experiences across the island.
Photographs in particular compliment the stories that were collected as part of the digital storytelling event. The photograph below of Margot and her wife Dr Sarah B. was taken on the day of their civil partnership, in Carrick on Shannon, in June 2014. This joyful image paints a different picture of what it means (and has always meant) to be part of ‘the family’ in Ireland.
Other items in the collection include audio interviews and transcripts, fanzines and competition prizes that all shed light on the diverse realities of Irish family life, creating a more inclusive picture of “the family” in Ireland.
Dr Leanne Calvert, Co-PI, concluded that, “using objects as the foundation for the interviews allowed us an interesting window into family life. We are delighted that the DRI can host the interviews and objects together and we hope that they will be of interest to researchers and the wider public going forward.”
Welcoming the launch of the online exhibition, Cora Black, Head of UCC Library, said:
“Access to the Digital Repository of Ireland continues to be a vital tool for our research community. We see the work that goes into preparing a dataset for ingest as FAIR and Open, and are delighted at the results of that effort, an invaluable, accessible and reusable collection preserved long term for future use. Congratulations to Maeve and RIFNET project.”
The RIFNET project was funded by the UK Research and Innovation-Economic and Social Research Council and the Irish Research Council under the ‘ESRC-IRC UK-Ireland Networking Grants’ (Grant numbers ES/V008269/1 and IRC/V008269/1).
You can explore the full RIFNET collection in the DRI Repository and find more information about the project on the RIFNET website.
Keep up to date with all of DRI’s new collections by signing up to our newsletter.
