Community Archive Scheme
Community archives aim to give visibility to the stories and histories of specific cultures and communities that are often underrepresented in national or regional archives.
Previous DRI Community Archive Scheme Winners
2023 – Dublin Digital Radio
Dublin Digital Radio (ddr) is an award-winning, online community radio station representing a wealth of alternative music, art, and politics across Ireland. ddr is wholly funded by its members, composed of listeners and broadcasters alike. Over the past six years of broadcasting, ddr has amassed a rich archive of radio shows, innovative sound art, and radio plays, as well as recordings of their annual music festival Alternating Current.
Their collections will provide future generations with an invaluable insight into Irish sound cultures and community radio during a particular time and place.
2022 – Tulsk History Society
Since its foundation in March 2021, the Tulsk History Society has already acquired a very comprehensive collection of documents, books, and photographs that are reflective of Tulsk’s local history, culture, and way of life. THS aims to preserve a small collection of 11 historically important letters dating back to the 1890s, which document Irish experiences of emigration to America.
The letters provide valuable first-hand accounts of the opportunities afforded by the New World, but also the challenges faced by families during this time.
2022 – Bray Arts
Bray Arts was founded in 1996 as a forum for both arts practitioners and anyone with an interest in the arts. It was set up to provide emerging artists with opportunities to showcase and present their work in a supportive and appreciative environment and to provide a forum for discussion, lobbying, and campaigning for the Arts in Bray.
Bray Arts has accumulated a substantial collection of written and photographic records of its activities over the years. The written collection alone comprises over 92 Bray Arts Journals and 38 shorter bulletins as well as photographs of artists, writers, performers, and attendees at Arts events.
DRI Community Archive Scheme Winners 2021
Three community-based archive initiatives were chosen as the winners of the 2021 DRI Community Archive Scheme: The Elephant Collective, Dublin Ghost Signs, and Dublin-based Community Films by Joe Lee. The decision to award three 2021 DRI Community Archive Scheme recipients was in recognition of the exceptional standard of the winning applications and the significance of the collection material, which promises to enrich the digital cultural memory of Ireland.
The decision was also informed by DRI’s commitment to playing our part during the COVID-19 crisis by offering extra preservation support for at-risk collections during this challenging time.
2021 – The Elephant Collective
The Elephant Collective is a voluntary group of birth activists, educators, student midwives, and artists that worked with the parliamentarian Clare Daly MEP (then TD) from 2014 to 2019 to secure new legislation that would make inquests into all maternal deaths in Ireland both automatic and mandatory. In 2019, they succeeded in ensuring that the Coroners (Amendment) Act 2019 passed into legislation.
The collection is a testament to the hard work of the campaigners and will be a rich resource for researchers, both nationally and internationally, who wish to learn more about the example set by Ireland as the first country in Europe to have passed specific legislation about maternal death inquests.
2021 – Dublin Ghost Signs
Ghost signs are the old and typically hand-painted signs of advertisements and businesses that have closed their doors for the final time. In Dublin, these signs are everywhere – on walls, above buildings, and on tiled mosaic doorsteps. Dublin Ghost Signs is an online collection of Dublin’s old and fading signs which have stood the test of time.
The collection will be a significant resource for history and sociology researchers and for anybody interested in visual collections which illustrate the changing landscape of a city.
2021 – Dublin-based Community Films by Joe Lee
Joe Lee is an independent film and video maker. Since the early 2000s, Joe has been making a series of community-based films set in Dublin neighbourhoods that present a unique insight into the recent social history of the city from the 1980s onwards. These projects include: Dreams in the Dark (2002), Dark Room (2002), Inside Out Outside In Stories from O’Devaney Gardens (2007), Bananas On The Breadboard (2010), CityWide (2011), The Area (2012), Fortune Wheel (2015) and Barracks Square Estate (2017).
The eight community-based films in Joe’s collection offer an important social and cultural history of Dublin and are especially relevant in terms of providing a record of oral histories of working-class Dublin communities. The Dublin-based Community Films by Joe Lee collection can be explored here.
2020 – Asylum Archive
The 2020 winner was Asylum Archive. This collection includes almost 6,000 photographs, academic essays, audio interviews, and publications that document life under Direct Provision, collected by artist, activist, and scholar Vukašin Nedeljković, a former resident of a Direct Provision Centre.
2020 – Cork Community Media Hub (formerly Frameworks Media and Archive Centre)
Cork Community Media Hub was recognised in the Community Archive Scheme 2020. Cork Community Media Hub is a social enterprise in Cork City that provides services for the community in film-making, media production, and training.
2019 – Cork LGBT Archive
Cork LGBT Archive was the inaugural winner of the DRI Community Archive Scheme Award. The Cork LGBT Archive aims to preserve and share information in relation to the rich history of Cork’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities. The collection has been preserved for long-term access in the Repository here.
Back to Community Archive Scheme
DRI is funded by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS) via the Higher Education Authority (HEA) and the Irish Research Council (IRC).
