The presentation covers how the Imirce Project came about via Kerby Miller's initial work of collecting Irish emigrants letters and memoirs and his subsequent donation of the collection to the University of Galway. It describes the initial digitisation of the immigrant letters and memoirs, the digitisation and incorporation into the Imirce Project database of additional donated material and concludes with a live tour of the Imirce Project database to demonstrate the range and scope of the collection and how best to access and interrogate its content.
About Breandán Mac Suibhne and Daniel Carey
Breandán Mac Suibhne is Professor of Modern Irish History at the University of Galway.
Breandán studies society and culture in modern Ireland. His "The End of Outrage: Post-Famine Adjustment in Rural Ireland" (Oxford University Press, 2017) was Irish Times Irish Non-Fiction Book of the Year in 2017.
Daniel Carey is Professor of English, Media and Creative Arts at the University of Galway.
He is a graduate of McGill University, Trinity College Dublin, and Oxford University where he took his D.Phil. He has published numerous academic articles and a monograph "Locke, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson: Contesting Diversity in the Enlightenment and Beyond" (Cambridge University Press, 2006), and six edited volumes.
Breandán and Daniel, together with Dr Cillian Joy, Head of Open and Digital Research at the University of Galway, are leading a team developing an online database that will facilitate access to Kerby A. Miller's vast collection of transcripts of Irish emigrant letters and memoirs: the database was launched in March 2024.
The talk was presented via Zoom by the Ireland Branch of the Society in March 2025. It is now released for all members to view by kind permission of the authors and speakers.
You must be a logged on paid up member to view the recording. The link to it can be found under the Members heading above.
