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Welcome to the digital catalogue of the Cork Folklore Project

Here you can access the catalogue of the Cork Folklore Project’s collections, which consist primarily of audio-recorded oral history/folklore interviews carried out in and around Cork, Ireland, since 1996. Our sound archive currently (2024) consists of around 850 interviews.

The catalogue consists of collection-level and interview-level descriptions, and archival information relating to the interviewees, interviewers and interviews (in the form of Dublin Core metadata and Oral History item-level descriptions).

It also contains audio extracts from each interview, ranging in length from 2 minutes to 15 minutes, and is searchable in a number of ways (see below). Each audio extract has an accompanying transcript or log further down the page.

Possible uses of the catalogue include:

1. As a signpost to our collection

This catalogue is a window onto our collection for researchers and individuals considering accessing our material, or who wish to get an idea of our practice. You can search or browse the catalogue to get an idea of the content of our collections and individual interviews. Access to full interviews is available on-site by arrangement, and we are working on our remote access policy. Please note the identifier (e.g. CFP_SR00392_mckeon_2010) of any interview that you wish to follow up on.

2. As a resource in itself

For interested practitioners and students, the catalogue gives a good idea of our interviewing practice and how we approach cataloguing and the generation of finding aids. Interview summaries and logs can give a good indication of the experiences and memories of individuals and groups in a particular time and place. Audio extracts may be used in linguistic or other research, particularly as they are accompanied by biographical information. The accounts of lives and experiences in this catalogue may serve as human, artistic or creative inspiration.

Ethical use notice

These oral history interviews are relatively informal and sometimes intimate conversations between two people, who have generously agreed to share these recordings with the Cork Folklore Project.  Please listen to the extracts in the spirit in which these were shared.

How to search this catalogue

You can search all text content of this catalogue (interview and collection summaries, logs and transcript extracts where available) using the search bar. Alternatively, you can browse existing tags (tags are at attributed at interview level): please note that our tagging of interviews is ongoing.

Using material from the catalogue

Please follow the instructions for citing and acknowledging the catalogue material here.

Want to browse stories from the collection on a map? Visit our Cork Memory Map.

For more on the community-based Cork Folklore Project in Cork City, Ireland, visit our website.

Some sample collections include:

Cork 2005

Cork Memory Map

Ballyphehane Oral History Project