Definitions
The Archive interprets 'Irish oral history’ in the broadest possible terms, and always tries to include rather than exclude material.
Oral narratives are collected if they could be considered relevant to the life history of the Irish people in any way – in origin, or in idiom, or in transmission or style of performance, etc. – or if they are relevant to an understanding of the Irish emigrant experience, especially as it relates to Britain.
As well therefore as collecting primarily spoken narratives, the Archive also collects books, letters, written journals, newspaper clippings, radio programmes, songs and music, photographs, video recordings and all manner of ephemera as it relates to the main collection.
The oral history of migration is regarded by the Archive as being not just a valuable element of Irish culture abroad, but of contemporary and historic Irish culture in Ireland. It therefore emphasises the on-going collection of the complex narratives of Irish people at home and abroad as it relates to the migrant experience.