Centre for Digital Humanities

In Ireland, citizenship by birth or the principle of jus soli existed since the inception of the Irish state until the Irish government introduced a Citizenship Referendum in 2004. This referendum proposed to impose restrictions on citizenship by birth due to the circumstances of unprecedented levels of inward migration. While the government claimed that it was safeguarding Irish citizenship from exploitation, some commentators suggested that the proposed restrictions were an example of racial intent. Alternatively, it might also be argued that the restrictions were an example of ethnic nepotism and the safeguarding of ‘Irishness’ as a sense of homogeneity. This essay explores these arguments in context.

While it might be customary to believe that peace walls have led to residential segregation in Belfast, this is not the case. Rather, segregation in Belfast has been intertwined with sectarianism and violence, and perpetuated over generations through a sense of tradition. The reasons for segregation in Belfast have acquired multifaceted ‘layers’ of meaning over time and in order to understand this phenomenon, it is necessary to peel back the ‘layers’ and re-visit history. This essay examines the underlying roots of segregation in Belfast and the interrelated themes in the title are its main focus. 

Dissertation, BA (Hons) in Cultural Studies, Dundalk Institute of Technology, Dundalk, Co. Louth, Ireland

The rationale for archiving the Web is the necessity to record and preserve a fleeting cultural, historical, legal, evidential, informational and social record, as well as to provide a means for future research and analysis. Thus, in this digital age, web archiving is a process which occurs in real time and is concerned with accessing our past in the future. How, why and what we save from the Web has long reaching consequences in the field of human, digital and political history. If the web material archived is an inconsistent patchwork of sources and not a clear and full record of its time; then that will be the quality of our digital legacy to future generations.
Election campaigns are a central component of an electoral system and at the heart of democracy. The web archiving of election campaigns is a planned response aimed at capturing a political campaign in flux. This activity is necessary for the preservation of the historical, cultural, social and political record; analysis of democratic processes over periods of time, and the study of political and democratic history for future generations. Indeed, many institutions began their web archiving endeavours with focused thematic crawls for web content during election campaigns. However, what gets captured and why is relatively understudied and is the main focus of this thesis. While the concept seemed relatively straightforward initially, there were many challenges ahead, and as it turns out, it is not only what gets captured and why that is important, but how useful it is for the purpose of research.

Institutions and Ireland: Public Cultures, Trinity College Dublin, 27 October 2016.

"Here today, gone tomorrow: A case study on the necessity for a more rigorous approach to the preservation of online Irish cultural and political heritage."

Following on the heels of other western societies for a radicalisation of copyright in the digital age, Richard Bruton, who was the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the time, established the Copyright Review Committee (CRC) in May 2011. While there were several tasks set for the CRC, one of its main functions was to examine the current state of national copyright legislation and to “identify any areas that are perceived to create barriers to innovation” (Modernising Copyright, 2013: 8). The CRC subsequently produced the report Modernising Copyright in October 2013 which offered modern solutions to Ireland’s outdated copyright laws. Yet, to date, the Irish government has failed to introduce up-to-date legislation based on the recommendations of the CRC report. This paper is concerned with the CRC recommendations for the introduction of digital legal deposit to current legal deposit institutions, and further to this, that such institutions should be permitted to “make copies of our online digital heritage by reproducing any work that is made available in the State through the internet” (Modernising Copyright, 2013: 14). It is our duty to ensure that future generations of Irish society have access to accurate and unimpeded accounts of their historical past. By means of a comprehensive analysis of link rot in current Irish government departmental websites; this paper presents a case study to demonstrate the necessity for a more rigorous approach to the preservation of online cultural and political heritage. (https://liveandarchived.wordpress.com/2016/12/05/here-today-gone-tomorrow/)

This research set out to identify issues and provide solutions to allow for the development of an appropriate methodology to design a system model for a web-based resource to communicate the available source material in the Aer Corps Aerial Photographs and Vertical Negatives collection. Initially, the collection consisted of 230 flight maps and over 45,000 aerial images, but this data had limitations and lacked descriptive information. To overcome this, it was envisaged that additional information might be obtainable from the archived flight logs; consequently, they revealed that they should also be recognised as a significant part of the collection. However, the addition of the flight logs also changed the dynamics of the collection, and so, necessitated a change of direction for the project methodology. This white paper presents an appropriate solution to communicate the essential data while considering the needs of end-users from technical as well as non-technical backgrounds.

Presented by Ryan Tubridy and filmed in the GPO, ’16 Letters is a major television event specially commissioned for RTE’s 1916 commemorations which sees the written words of ordinary and extraordinary people – caught up in a time of blood, sacrifice and rebellion – brought back to life … one hundred years after they were written. ’16 Letters is recorded in the beating heart of the 1916 Rising – and also the communication centre of the day – the GPO. The stories within the letters are told using dramatic reconstruction, archive and very personal interviews with the letter writers’ descendants. The film is anchored by Ryan Tubridy who helps weave the stories together into one compelling narrative. The film features a variety of letters written before, during and after 1916 brought together to tell a multitude of stories of that seminal year – stories of love, war, struggle and defiance.  The 75-minute film goes behind the headlines of history to hear the intimate thoughts and words of real people a century ago.Unconnected with the history turning events unfolding all round them, many people struggled to maintain ordinary lives during that fateful Easter week. We hear their voices through the letters they wrote, giving us an unadulterated and non-partisan account of a nation, and a world in chaos. There are hard stories from World War I; a love story drawn from a collection of over 100 love letters that unfold over six months of 1916; there’s an account of a child caught up in the crossfire of the week; and we hear from a Capuchin monk who bore witness not just to the Rising but also many of the executions. There’s the powerful and desperate letter to a wife from her husband condemned to death; a number of very contrasting letters from prisoners in Frongach and a taste of the many letters seeking compensation in the aftermath of the Rising. This 75-minute production goes behind the headlines of history to emerge with an entirely fresh look at modern Ireland’s bloody birth – filmed in its very cradle, the GPO.
RTE One, broadcast on Sunday 27th March. Made with the support of BAI Sound and Vision Fund and Section 481.
The role involved intensive archive and online research to identify and source
newspapers, documents, prints, stills, portraits, film/news footage from a wide variety of sources in Ireland and abroad. It also entailed budget control, research on copyright, and obtaining rights for transmission clearance for broadcasting.

RESAW/IIPC Conference, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 14-16 June 2017.

"The web archiving of Irish election campaigns: A case study into the usefulness of the Irish web archive for researchers and historians."

Election campaigns are a central component of any democratic electoral system. As a subject domain, election campaigns attract attention from across the social sciences and in particular from historians, memoirists, and scholars in journalism, politics, and communications. In the digital age, it seems judicious to argue that candidate’s websites and their accompanying digital resources are deserving of equal scrutiny to other published forms of election campaign literature. However, unlike most published forms of campaign literature, websites belonging to election candidates are capable of being altered spontaneously throughout a campaign. This dynamic may occur for several reasons, such as a response to comments and feedback from the electorate, the tactics of the political opposition, or in some cases, as a direct result of political scandals. Indeed, in the aftermath of an election, websites of election candidates often disappear to the sphere of the ‘HTTP 404 Not Found’ error. In addition, the content of government and political party websites is often modified to coincide with an election campaign, and notably, government departmental websites are prone to undergo change due to a turnover in government after an election. Thus, it may be argued that the web archiving of election campaigns is a planned response aimed at capturing a political campaign in flux. Indeed, it may be further argued that the web archiving of election campaigns and government websites is essential for the preservation of the historical, cultural, social and political record; analysis of democratic processes over periods of time, and the study of political and democratic history for future generations.

Many institutions began their web archiving endeavours with focused thematic crawls for web content during election campaigns. Yet, the usefulness of election campaign collections in a web archive for researchers and historians is relatively understudied. The first instance of a web archiving initiative in Ireland was conducted by the National Library of Ireland (NLI) in 2011, and coincided with the 2011 General Election. Since then, the NLI has taken great strides to secure a web archiving programme for the capture of Irish online social, cultural and political heritage. This paper presents a case study which examines the efficacy of the Irish web archive for the study of election campaigns and political history.(https://liveandarchived.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/the-web-archiving-of-irish-election-campaigns-a-case-study-into-the-usefulness-of-the-irish-web-archive-for-researchers-and-historians/)

The purpose of this essay is to examine peace walls in Belfast, and specifically why they were initially constructed and maintained. In order to attain a greater understanding on the nature of the problem surrounding the removal of peace walls, I feel it is both necessary and beneficial to understand why they were put there in the first instance. I believe this topic is relevant, as peace walls represent an obstacle to the peace process, in that they obstruct the Northern Ireland Assembly from realising its ambition to establish a more integrated society. In the outset, this essay will examine some of the available literature on peace walls in an international context, in order to gain a greater insight as to why they are constructed. Thereafter, it will discuss the history of residential segregation in Belfast, and the nature of discrimination from the creation of Northern Ireland in 1921, up until the beginning of the ‘Troubles’ in the late 1960s. This will set the background, and open the discussion as to why it became necessary for the British army to construct peace walls from 1969.

The Irish language had been in decline even before the Act of Union (1800) cemented the Kingdom of Great Britain and the island of Ireland in terms of forever. While this Act was intended to assimilate Ireland into the British Empire, it never really took into account the cultural differences between the emerging industrialised culture of England and an Irish culture indigenous with the possession of land. Therefore, for the best part of the 19C the English were reliant on coercion, which may have resulted in the submission of some Irish to support English culture and ideals in order to improve their own circumstances. The Irish language suffered further decline due to the Great Famine in the 1840s; starvation and disease ‘claimed one million lives’, stipulated mass emigration and a demise of Irish speaking natives.  Thus, the Gaelic League (Connradh na Gaedhilge), came into being on 31 July, 1893 with a ‘sole purpose of keeping the Irish language spoken in Ireland.’  For the purpose of this research assignment the author will refer to the Bureau of Military History Collection, 1913-1921 (BMH), to examine the entry path into revolutionary action of a number of individuals through the Gaelic League. As part of this process, the author will look at the social atmosphere prior to the founding of the League. The author will also explore how the Gaelic League evolved from being a language revival movement to a cultural space which produced a ‘historic bloc’ of leaders to manoeuvre a political and military resistance to British rule.

New Perspectives Postgraduate Symposium on the Humanities, ‘Unseen Voices: Representations, Interpretations & Reconstructions’, Maynooth University, Ireland, 12-13 October, 2018.

"Lost and Found: Web campaigns on the Marriage Equality Referendum."

Imagine a researcher studying the Irish Divorce Referendum of 1995. S/he would consult newspaper archives, and likely refer to the National Library of Ireland’s election ephemera collection, interview politicians of the time, and survey people who voted in the referendum. Fast forward to 2015 and imagine that same researcher studying the Marriage Equality Referendum (Same-Sex Marriage). S/he would still consult newspaper archives and ephemera collections (or the digital surrogates available in online library/ archive databases), conduct interviews and surveys, and most certainly consult the World Wide Web (‘the Web’). However, while the Web is a major resource for researchers, it is ephemeral; information is in constant flux with content updates and removals.

The 2015 Marriage Equality Referendum was a key milestone in Irish constitutional history, and both the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ campaigns had designated websites to convey their message to the voter audience. Yet how many of these websites are still discoverable or available on the Web? This paper looks at the extent to which campaign websites for this referendum have disappeared from the Web and offers solutions for researchers to use a web archive as a possible means for finding lost websites.

https://liveandarchived.wordpress.com/2018/10/14/lost-and-found-web-campaigns-marriage-equality-referendum/

New Perspectives Postgraduate Symposium on the Humanities, ‘Unseen Voices: Representations, Interpretations & Reconstructions’, Maynooth University, Ireland, 12-13 October, 2018.

"Political Cartoons as Critical Commentaries of the Past."

Political cartoons are often referred to as editorial cartoons with the term ‘political’ being applied in a constricted sense, in that the portrayal of social, cultural and economic issues may result in political consequences. They tend to be single panel illustrations and are typically published as an accompaniment for, or a response to an editorial or commentary page of a newspaper or periodical. Traditionally, political cartoons were seen as a form of protest, and resistance to hegemonic practices and representations and so provide a window to critical commentaries of the past. Consequently, they offer a rich source of evidence for the historical study of social, cultural and political phenomena.
While traditional access to such cartoons in archives was problematic, they are now accessible through online digital collections. Yet, the provision of access in digital collections does not mean they will be easily discovered, as they need to be indexed with a broad range of meaningful attributes, both generic and specific. Moreover, even when discovered, political cartoons are not easily interpreted or understood unless they are accompanied by sufficient contextual metadata to enable a user to acquire relevance and meaning. This paper looks at the various challenges for the discovery and retrieval of political cartoons in online digital collections. It also offers some solutions for the interpretation of such cartoons as communications between a cartoonist and a reader, and thus a real-time response to the news of that time.

Student Librarians and Information Professionals Ireland Conference (SLIP Ireland 2018), Dublin City Library, 24 February 2018

“From the Archive to the Web: Dilemmas with Digital Scholarly Editions.”

Two longstanding activities associated with humanities computing/digital humanities (DH) are digital archiving and digital scholarly editing. Both activities can be traced to the pre-Web era and gained prominence from the mid-1990s due to advances in digitisation technologies, combined with the development of the Web in the public domain. While they have characteristics in common such as the digitisation of texts/documents and the provision of access to the digital surrogates in an online environment, it is worth noting that they are not the same thing.

Sahle defines scholarly editions as the “critical representation of historic documents” (23), with a digital scholarly edition (DSE) being a scholarly edition that is “guided by a digital paradigm in [its] theory, method and practice” (28). Characteristics of a DSE include the digitisation, transcription, and encoding of texts/documents for presentation in the HTML environment, with added contextualisation through hyperlink annotations and/or multimedia. While the tasks involved in producing a DSE seem relatively straightforward, nonetheless, DSE projects often run the risk of not being completed on time or within budget. For instance, problems arise from underestimating the length of time it will take to complete a task, a failure (at the start) to configure the parameters and constraints of the proposed web platform to be used, and a major dilemma is Scope Creep. Thus, the aim of this presentation is to provide some useful tips for early career information professionals on how to avoid some of the pitfalls in producing a quality DSE within time-frame and budget.