About us

This online version of the University College Cork Folklore and Ethnology Archive (UCCFEA) sound recording catalogue is the result of a digitisation project and database of the analogue collection of reel-to-reel and cassette tapes in the archive. It was designed and implemented by Dr Marie-Annick Desplanques, and Colin Mac Hale and Jamie Furey.

The UCCFEA is a research facility within the Department of Folklore and Ethnology. Its holdings consist of multimedia material arising from the work of both staff and students of Béaloideas / Folklore and Ethnology, together with other relevant material from external depositors. The collections, which cover all aspects of rural and urban folklore, folklife and popular culture are available for consultation on site.

 

Background

The UCCFEA situated at 5 Elderwood, College Road, Cork, was established in 1995, simultaneously as the then Northside Folklore Project, now the Cork Folklore Project at a time when new technologies were becoming newer by the day! Samples of both archives catalogues were then integrated into the Multimedia Centre for Urban and Regional Ethnology (MCURE) as part of Documents of Ireland in 1999. The successful development of these facilities lived and outlived all manners and kinds of digital technologies, prior to the millennium bug phenomenon, an externalisation of folk belief which, from an ethnologist perspective truly beat the fairies and turned them into gremlins. As IT survived, it became possible to further delve into electronic applications and from Y2K, in 2000, the Léann Dúchais Leictreonach (LDL) project initiated the digitisation of the Irish language UCCFEA resources. LDL thrived through multifarious wares to provide with various renditions.

We learned a great deal over a very short time. Advents in new technologies continue to revolutionise the folklore process; as a result, the archiving of ethnographical material is a constant yet continuous progression into new virtual fields.