It’s been wonderful to see so much happening to mark the recent 70th anniversary of rural electrification and how our archive contributed to many of these projects.
Here are some highlights:
RTÉ Doc on One
A marvellous new radio documentary featuring some great stories from the days of rural electrification made and presented by Joe Kearney.
You can listen back here.
Launch of ‘Then There Was Light’ book
Edited by PJ Cunningham and Joe Kearney this collection of eyewitness stories form a social record of both the events and the people behind the scheme that shaped modern Ireland.
More on the book here.
Irish Times feature
Award-winning Irish Times journalist Rosita Boland researched extensively at our archive before writing her ‘Power to the People’ series, a fascinating insight into how people reacted to the arrival of electricity.
Read the Irish Times story here.
1996 episode of The Late Late Show
We had no hand in this one but delighted to see our friends in RTÉ Archives unearth this clip from a 1996 episode of The Late Late Show with Gay Byrne, Alice Taylor and Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh reflecting on the scheme.
Watch the clip here.
And not forgetting some of our own projects…
All 792 rural areas now online
We digitised and published key facts and information on our website for each of the 792 rural areas involved in the scheme.
Read more here.
Exhibition in Carlow
Our exhibition, entitled ‘The Quiet Revolution’, was officially opened in the Carlow County Museum in August and ran until April 2017.
More on the exhibition here.
Congrats to Joe Kearney on a beautiful doc on One RTE.It was a joy to listen to memories of a time when simplicity and the gift of wonderment were ever present in the lives of our people.