Students to be invited to take part in folklore project

Primary and secondary school students will be invited to share their experiences at school as part of a new folklore project for the 21st century.

The project will be carried out with the National Folklore Collection and UCD Library and will be open to all of the country's 4,000 primary, post-primary and special schools.

Minister for Education Norma Foley said the project is optional and it will be launched in full in January 2025.

Minister Foley made the announcement at an event to mark the 100-year anniversary of the establishment of the Department of Education.

The exact details of the scheme have yet to be worked out, but schools will be consulted and involved in the best ways regarding how students will contribute.

"Following consultation with schools and teachers, it is intended that the project would see students in every part of the country gather stories and insights into local traditions from their areas for hosting in a national archive which will allow us as a society to continue sharing cultural values, knowledge and collective memory from one generation to another," Minister Foley said.

The aim is to make all the content gathered available to the public down the line as part of the national archive.

"We are not going to be prescriptive. The most important thing is that pupils will have the opportunity to deliver what they experience in their own communities," she added.

The schools’ folklore project will gather its information in a variety of formats, including handwritten accounts and digital options for students as well.

The project builds on the work of the previous folklore project, which was set up by the National Folklore Collection in 1937.

It gathered 500,000 pages of oral history, folktales and legends, riddles and proverbs, games and pastimes, trades and crafts from more than 50,000 pupils in 5,000 schools across the State between 1937 and 1939.