Research

Researching Local History: The Flame and the Candle by Dominic Price

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:01:51 +0100

Sources

One of the first tasks you set yourself is to determine the initial sources you will consult. Define your period and try to avoid spreading your focus too wide or too narrow. Newspapers are a good starting point as they reveal key personalities as well as the sequence of events. You should also consider whether the work you are undertaking has already been addressed by someone else. Your initial sources should provide interesting details while also leading you in many different direction...

The Etiquette of Interviewing

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:31:08 +0100

So I interviewed her, not knowing the first thing about her. She was no chatterbox, and the interview appeared as a longer-than-usual photo caption. Some years later when she was a global star I interviewed her again at length, but getting her to say anything was like getting blood from a stone. You can be prepared to the hilt, but some people are just naturally reticent.

We’ve all heard the phrase “lazy journalism” and over the years I’ve had my well-prepared interviews piggybacked by h...

Mary Russell's Guide to Travel Writing.

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:42:25 +0100

The small notebook is the quickie one from where ideas and happenings are taken, expanded and written down into a bigger book, usually a school exercise book bought in whatever country I’m in. Then there’s another small notebook in which I write down books referenced, directions on how to get to the bus station or the no-star hostel, the names and contact details of people I’ve met such as the man in Aleppo who travelled to Ireland regularly to buy reconditioned tracto...

A Beginners Guide to the University Library

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:37:40 +0100

Coming into a third-level university library can be at first a daunting experience. Where exactly do you begin? University libraries have never before been packed with so much information and with online access to near endless databases and resources; your worry may at first seem justified. However, once you get to grips with what your library has to offer you, you will soon realise that it will make your college experience so much easier.

All university libraries offer orientation tours, guided...

Writing History: The Ship of Seven Murders by Kathy Bunney

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 10:15:05 +0100

Returning to education in 2008 was a difficult decision. I did not know if my home could operate without me in it, this is not to say that I am indispensible in any way, but my home is a busy one with six sons that trundle through each day needing feeding and parenting. However, I was confident that I could cope and the smallest, Olan aged 2 was enrolled in the college crèche.

Coláiste Stiofán Naofa is a VEC run college in Cork City and provided access courses that could be spread ove...

What do you need to know?

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 07:23:34 +0100

Phillipa Gregory’s page turning historical novels about the Tudors and the Boleyn Family make British History exciting and dramatic. She hosts and interesting discussion on her web page www.phillipagregory.com about the differences between History and Historical Fiction. In it she proposes that history isn’t wholly facts and that all histories rely on imagination. So there is a fine line between fiction and non-fiction.

Kate Grenville writes like a poet and researches like a Professo...