News of the funding was announced by Galway Traveller Movement (GTM ), following the organisation's success in securing resources to expand the scope of its online interactive map of traditional Traveller camp sites in Galway city and county.
The funding for the project comes in the form of a Community Heritage Grant, which was awarded by GTM by the Heritage Council of Ireland. The project is being run in partnership with the Department of History, the Centre for Creative Technologies and University of Galway.
Using audio and visual methods to map and archive the traditional Traveller camping sites, these findings will be on both physical and digital maps.
“The Traveller Community is the largest indigenous ethnic minority in the country,” says GTM spokesperson Nora Corcoran, adding, “We are a diverse population with a rich and vibrant history.
"Reimagining Life on the Road’ celebrates the Galway Traveller community's way of life. It ensures that beautiful stories of times past are not lost and our contributions to Irish culture and history are protected and respected.”
Story collectors within the Traveller community will be trained to collect and archive oral histories about the sites and their material culture. The online map will be interactive, providing a platform where Travellers can contribute and share community centred history.
“The Heritage Council funding in this final phase will enable us to archive valuable audio and visual recordings. These capture the essence of old Traveller camp sites," said Nora.
"They are not mere echoes of the past. They are vibrant, living testimonies of a nomadic heritage of the local Traveller community”
Launch event
The ‘Reimagining Life on the Road’ project will be celebrated at the University of Galway at 11am on August 21, as part of National Heritage Week.
The event will feature a public interview with GTM spokesperson, Nora Corcoran, regarding her memories of living on a campsite as a child.
'A Collaborative Journey Through Memory and Culture'
Created through an ongoing Traveller Heritage programme titled 'Preserving the Rich Traveller Heritage: A Collaborative Journey through Memory and Culture', the programme's funding success comes following a great deal of work and brainstorming.
Divided into three phases, the programme will enter its third phase, 'Archiving the Voices', around the time of the project's launch event in August. The preceding two phases; 'Mapping the Past' and 'Expanding the Narrative' saw the map's creation and planned growth, stemming from mapping out sites to introducing stories and recordings.
The initiative's first phase, 'Mapping the Past' was supported by the Misleór Festival of Nomadic Cultures, and Dr Catherine Cronin, of the ‘Just Knowledge’ project in conjunction with GO-GN (the Global OER Graduate Network ) and The Open University.
The second phase of the initiative, 'Expanding the Narrative', has brought the map up to its current standard, following the scope of the map being expanded to include new and existing locations and stories and memories.
Now, following the 'generous funding' issued by the National Heritage Council, the project will enter its third phase, 'Archiving the Voices'. This will see historians from University of Galway develop a 'sophisticated' archival system for the audio and visual recordings obtained from the project.
The project is being overseen by artist, Seamus Nolan and is supported by Oein De Bhairduin, Development Officer for the Traveller Culture Collections at the National Museum of Ireland.
