Milltown gathers for launch of digital archive

By JACQUELINE HOGGE THE rich history and heritage of Milltown is to be digitally recorded in a new archive created by senior pupils at the local national school. Formally launched this week, the Milltown Digital Archive project is being developed in conjunction with NUI Galway, whose education outreach officer has been working with primary schools throughout the county in recent years. Brendan Smith visited the school last Wednesday for a community open evening where local people shared their photographs, films and other information on times past in the village. Pupils from fifth and sixth class have already received an award for their project at this year's Galway Science and Technology Festival, where they won the Digital Heritage accolade over the weekend. The 16 children have spent the past two months gathering information through interviewing older people in the community, and conducting field trips throughout the village to ascertain the sites of former landmark buildings from days gone by. New website The information, along with an extensive collection of old photographs, will be uploaded onto a special website in the coming weeks, and added to over the next school year. School principal Tom Casby thanked people for attending the event and encouraged them to share their memories and information with the children. Teacher Nuala Dalton said it was proving a very beneficial exercise for the children involved as it was giving them a new sense of the community and was developing closer relationships with older family members, from whom they were seeking information. 'This all began earlier this year when we celebrated the school's 40th anniversary with a pageant of what school life was like over the past four decades,' she said. 'We had been working with Brendan on another project and when I mentioned the idea of a digital archive he was very interested as he was doing something similar through the Beo project that he has been running in other areas of the county over the past few years. 'So we started to get the children to gather information from family members in the first instance and then we took them on field trips to different places in the village, including the football pitch, where the dressing rooms are built on the site of the former boys' school. 'We also have learned a lot from Milltown Sketches, a book on the village written by the former principal of the boys' school, Christy Molloy, and we're delighted to see so many people here this evening who hopefully have a lot of information to share with the children.' Brendan Smith praised Milltown National School for being one of the few primary schools in the county to introduce computer coding for its pupils, and said projects such as the digital archive would further enhance the children's skills in IT. Learning skills 'We are great users of technology but not the best at digital creation so by introducing coding and projects such as this at an early age, we hope to get young people to see the technology behind things like the iPhone to encourage them to get involved at that creative stage,' he said. 'The digital archive the children are working on is a project that will take many months and we're hoping to formally exhibit the website at an event towards the end of the school year next May, where the community can come together to see the fruits of their labour. 'This will tie in with the Gathering that will bring Irish people home from all over the world, and the beauty of this project is that we can reach the diaspora in a virtual sense, as has already proved the case with the Beo project that is running in other areas of the county.' Principal Tom Casby said the archive reinforced the school's position as being a focus for the entire community and he was heartened to see so many people from the area willing to share the pictures and stories they had. New chapter 'Tonight we are embarking on a new chapter in that this school resource is one that can be shared by the whole community, and we are deeply indebted to Brendan Smith for the enthusiasm and knowledge he has shared with us in recent years,' he said. 'I would also like to pay tribute to Nuala Dalton for her commitment to this and other projects at the school as a lot of work has already gone into the archive. Last but not least I must thank our 16 pupils from fifth and sixth class who have shown tremendous hard work and dedication over the past number of weeks to getting this project off the ground and who are committed to continuing their efforts over the coming months.'