In January we were delighted to run more Irish Family History Centre workshops, and had the pleasure of being hosted by the fantastic team at Kerry County Museum in Tralee.

Earlier in the academic year we teamed up with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, SIPTU and Youth Connect to develop and provide free supporting workshops for the classroom module Labour, Gender and Class in the Struggle for Irish Independence 1917-1923. Our digitisation team also worked on the project and were able to provide primary source materials and some content for a module handbook, which can be downloaded here.

The workshops are offered for free as part of the classroom module, and tie in with the school’s curriculum. Through a combination of discussion, hands-on case studies and primary source challenges, we teach students valuable research skills - whether they are interested in unearthing their own family history or the history of a significant individual or historical event - as well as how to create a narrative and understand social history.

It was lovely to be back in Kerry County Museum after such a long time (I started out as an education volunteer there!), and the team gave us a very warm welcome. We spent the morning working with local school groups and got great insight into their own ideas of family and social history, which we hope inspired them to dig further into history and also think more about their Leaving Cert projects.

If you do find yourselves in Tralee, be sure to call in to Kerry County Museum! They have a huge collection of archaeological finds which tell the story of Kerry over thousands of years, and their Medieval Experience allows you to walk through, see and even smell medieval Tralee. It is a wonderful day out and there are plenty of activities to keep the whole family busy, with seasonal workshops, as well as the Pangúr Bán trail and a special archaeological dig box for children to become Bone Investigators.

We look forward to delivering more workshops in the future, as well as developing new and exciting educational partnerships. Our next set of Youth Connect workshops will take place in Monaghan, and to find out more about booking a free workshop there, please email [email protected] 

By Claire Murray