New project to bring Dublin’s history to life

Dublin City Libraries will soon be looking for people to get involved in an exciting crowdsourcing project which will bring to life thousands of historical handwritten documents which tell the story of the city in the 19th century.

As part of the project Dublin City Libraries are going to digitise and make available City Council minutes from 1841-1881 and documents from the Wide Streets Commission (1758-1851). These handwritten collections are incredibly useful to historians and researchers, as well people interested in their own local history.

Once digitised and made available on the web, Dublin City Libraries will be asking members of the public to help transcribe the records so that they can be easily searched and accessed by researchers and anyone with an interest in history. One of the exciting things about the project is that the work of the public volunteers will be used to train an Artificial Intelligence programme which then be able to transcribe more documents automatically.

Running until September 2022, the project also involves the Digital Repository of Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, and organisations from Austria, Croatia, Germany, Holland and Poland. The project has received European Commission funding under the EnrichEuropeana+ programme. 

Wide Street Commission Jury and Minute books (left) and Dublin City Council Minutes (right).

How you can get involved!

Our project will run until September 2022. In the coming months we will be looking for interested members of the public to join our crowdsourcing efforts and to transcribe these historical documents.

The DRI have published a blog post which contains more technical details or peruse the website for EnrichEuropeana+. The Project builds upon previous funded EU projects which have developed the Europeana platform and website, the Transcribathon platform for crowdsourcing transcriptions on Europeana, and the Transkribus automated transcription tool.

Here is the full list of project partners:

• Austrian Institute of Technology
•  Stichting Europeana -  The Netherlands
• Facts & Files - Germany
• Chemii Bioorganicznej Polskiej Akademii Nauk - Poland
• Read-Coop - Austria
• The Provost, Fellows, Foundation Scholars and the other members of Board, of the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin - Ireland
• Dublin City Council - Ireland
• Uniwersytet Wrocławski - Poland

A list of businesses on the South side of Dame Street in August 1779 

Attendees at a Dublin City Council meeting in May 1842. Note we also have a Byrne, Burke, Perry and Reilly on the Council today.