We’re delighted to launch our project: ‘Catching Stories’, which brings oral history and health together in a new way. It’s an online social history resource focussed on infectious disease in Ireland in the 20th and 21st centuries. Here we bring oral testimony and family memory together with an immunologist’s perspective, in a multi-media exploration of diseases such as measles, polio and tuberculosis. Listen to what it was like to be a recipient of ‘The Branding Iron’ in 1960s childhood tuberculosis vaccination, view the memorial cards of Cork brothers dead from Spanish Flu within a fortnight of each other, browse the accounts of how families and communities were affected by infectious disease and listen to the stories. Learn about the history of these diseases, what causes them, how they spread and the efforts to combat them.
Browse our pilot resource at http://www.catchingstories.org. We would love to hear from anyone who would like to contribute to the ongoing project: just contact us at https://corkfolklore.org/health/contribute-to-catching-stories