Ballymun in North Dublin is a community under change. In the forty-odd years or so since the first tenants moved into the gleaming system-built high-rise tower blocks that form the structural centrepiece of the estate, Ballymun has become a synonym in the public imagination for all that can go wrong in urban working-class housing estates. And now again in 2001, the first tenants have moved into housing constructed in Ballymun as part of a programme of urban regeneration, under which the high rise developments of old will gradually be demolished and their tenants re-housed in a radically altered Ballymun. It is envisaged that the new town of Ballymun will be both the symbol and the realisation of the physical, social and economic regeneration of the area - as one journalist recently termed the unfolding changes, Ballymun's 'brave new world'.
This is the context in which Ballymun Oral History Project came into being in September 2000. Funded by Ballymun Regeneration Ltd and undertaken by Eneclann Ltd., the oral history project was a core element of a larger history project which also included a documentary and an architectural strand. The oral history project was designed by Dr. Laurence Cox of the Department of Sociology N.U.I. Maynooth, and delivered by Dr. Cox and Ms. Patricia McBride. At the outset the oral history project had four key aims. These were:
Probably the most unique aspect of the project was its multi-disciplinary approach, combining history, sociology, community development and adult and youth education. The approach to the achievement of the project's aims was based on community development principles of local ownership of and participation in the project, empowerment of local people, commitment to community training and the development of locally owned management structures within the project.
These principles were translated into action through the design and implementation of a community consultation process with local people and groups, and also through National College of Ireland (N.C.I.) accreditation for training received by two groups of local people in oral history research methodology. The training course was designed within a participatory learning framework, and its focus was on the transfer of skills to the thirteen local participants to enable them to research the history of their own community. In tandem with skills transfer, was the development within the groups of an understanding of the concept of oral history and its utility in a community such as Ballymun. As the course progressed over a six month period, research themes and 'interviewees' were identified, and the groups armed with tape recorders and notebooks embarked on the task of carrying out between three and five interviews each. Simultaneously, we explored and developed structures to enable community control of the project's activities.
So following on from this work, what is the project's status in early 2002? The pilot project has now concluded, but continued efforts are being, and will be made to secure the requisite resources to expand and develop the project. Such expansion is of particular importance when one considers that Ballymun has a population of approximately 20,000. The stories gathered during the pilot project surely constitute only the tip of the iceberg. Ongoing work is underway to prepare for publication of the research undertaken by local people during the pilot project. And what a publication that promises to be! What emerges in the interview transcripts and in the early drafts of the publication is a story of community life in Ballymun; a story that blends humourous or moving accounts of everyday life, with the story of a community's individual and collective struggles and triumphs.
The pages are enlivened by the voices, knowledge, memories and experiences of local people in Ballymun from the young people who have grown up in the area, through its early tenants to the community activists who have peopled local social movements over the decades. Perhaps most importantly of all, this publication is the collective articulation of a community's history and culture as perceived by the ordinary people who live and have lived there. It can add to, balance or challenge accounts of Ballymun which appear in the official history books or in the media. Indeed, it ensures that the voices of ordinary working-class people so frequently underrepresented or undocumented in historical accounts are recorded and heard.
The process and product of Ballymun Oral History Project should be an inspiration to those in working-class communities throughout Ireland, as an innovative model for exploring their identities and recording their lives. It should also be a demonstration to wider society, both in Ireland and elsewhere, that the story of working class communities is not solely one of dereliction, desperation, deprivation and decline, but also one of determination, dignity, diversity and development.
The Ballymun Oral History Project is still very much in action - expect updates to this page!
A small team of researchers - an archivist, an oral historian and a community participant - will work with larger numbers of local volunteers to develop an oral history research project which takes its themes and directions from the local participants.
Aims and objectives:The goal is to use oral history methods to develop a history of Ballymun as a community. This is done within the understanding that "community" is something that people create and something that people do, so that the history of a community is not simply a history of "what happened to X", or "what happened in Y", but above all a history of "how Z made itself".
Given this, a central theme is local ownership of the project. This means that its shape (the direction, themes and focus of the research) is determined by community participants at different levels. Similarly, its actual content (the selection of interviewees, the interview process and the interviews themselves) are produced by members of the community.
The oral history project thus recreates in miniature something of the history of the creation of the community itself, and formalises already-existing local knowledge. This is reflected back to the community participants in the project, and finally to the community themselves, in particular bringing together different strands of the history of Ballymun into a single "conversation".
Resource issues:Stage 1: orienting the project
Involves:
Stage 2: training course (organised in consultation with third level institution and BRL)
Stage 3: main project
Stage 4: production of material for BRL
The theoretical groundwork for the understanding of community as self-produced has developed massively since the ground-breaking research of EP Thompson and the Birmingham school.
Examples of the range of possible strategies based on these perspectives include Max Farrar's 25-year history of Chapeltown in Leeds, based primarily on participant observation; Vester et al.'s "milieu biographies" of Reutlingen, Oberhausen and Hannover in Germany, drawing primarily on interviews with key informants backed up by other forms of data; and the oral histories of participants in 1968 in France (Hamon and Rotman) and internationally (Ronald Fraser).
The work of Alain Touraine and Alberto Melucci on social movements has produced effective research techniques for "simulating" the creation of a community by "miniaturised" research techniques that draw together the different strands of the whole; Hilary Wainwright's work is particularly important for understanding the nature and importance of local knowledge.
Aims and objectives:
Course outline:
Section 1: introduction and technical skills [8 x 2-hour sessions]This section will cover the nature and purpose of oral history and the basic technical skills involved in interviewing, transcribing and coding. An important part of this section will be computer literacy workshops covering basic skills in word processing, creating and organising documents, and search operations. These sessions will be mostly in the nature of workshops, organised around practical issues.
Section II: developing the oral history project [20 x 2-hour sessions]This section will involve the group identifying the key themes to research in Ballymun's history and deciding interviewees and question guidelines. The centrepiece of this section will be the carrying out, transcribing and coding of the interviews for the project. This section will conclude with the development of an analysis of the material. These sessions will see the group take increasing responsibility for the research as a whole, and will include a strong group dynamics / personal development element in working with diversity within the group and the research.
Section III: results and evaluation [4 x 2-hour sessions]This section will involve the group deciding how to present the results of the project to the community and its own future directions. Participants will then evaluate the project as a whole, as well as their part in it, which will be filmed by Fairview Productions for a video about the project to be made available to other community groups. These sessions will be entirely run by the course participants themselves.
Section IV: training for trainers [possible follow-on from existing course proposal]This could form the fourth block of the Participatory Appraisal and Evaluation programme, subject to approval by BRL. Participation in the previous 3 sections would be a prerequisite. This section would cover the purpose and politics of oral history, specific issues in training, group dynamics and personal development, and the development of appropriate course material for use by trainers.
ResourcesRooms and materials will be provided by BRL. It is hoped that the OHP participants will also receive some funding from BRL. Training will be provided by Eneclann.
Ballymun oral history project starts consultation in September
What makes it into the history books as official history is only a tiny slice of what ordinary people know and do about their world. Oral history sets out to bring some of that everyday knowledge together as a way of redressing the balance and passing on skills and experience to new generations.
The Ballymun oral history project starts from the idea that a community is the result of what people have done - so it is a history of the different movements within the community over the years, but also of people's everyday life and work, paid and unpaid. The project will bring together a range of people from the community to decide what themes in Ballymun history to highlight, who to interview and what questions to ask - and to make sense of the results and decide what to do with them. These community participants will get accreditation and pay (details under negotiation, but will be clear by September!)
Starting in September, Pat McBride will be consulting with local groups to find out what they think about the idea, how they'd like to see the project develop and if they're interested in taking part, either as participants or perhaps in a council overseeing the work of the project. Towards Christmas, Laurence Cox will start work on the training side of the project, transferring skills to participants in areas like interview techniques, coding and analysis. Their involvement ceases after 12 months, and the project will pass to community control.
Pat McBride has worked in community development in Ballybeg (her own estate) and in Lisduggan in Waterford. She has worked extensively with young people (ages 6 - 18 years) in developing community clubs and programmes geared towards education, recreation and personal development. She has also worked with other community groups, supporting a range of local people in identifying important issues in their lives and in taking positive action for change. She is looking forward to meeting and talking with the people of Ballymun and she views the project as a genuine opportunity for local people to really say something about their lives, experiences and so on. She hopes to bring her enthusiasm, listening skills and commitment to the project and, most importantly, her willingness to create a shared agenda between all the participants in this exciting and interesting venture.
Laurence Cox has been an activist for nearly 20 years, starting with collecting signatures and going on marches as a schoolkid. He was on the Dunnes Stores picket when he should have been doing his homework, was teargassed in Oslo protesting against Maggie Thatcher's visit, helped run a peace camp in Hamburg during the Gulf War and edited An Caorthann alternative magazine for five years. As a researcher he's dedicated to preserving and transmitting the skills developed by social movements, having spent 10 years doing oral history with Dublin activists, organising last year's "Ireland from below" activist / academic workshop and running an MA programme by participatory research in social movement practice.
Call for participants from Ballymun Echo
Are you interested in the history of Ballymun? If so, then you will be interested to know that the Ballymun Oral History Project is now underway. Oral history work uses interviewing techniques to research and record the lives, experiences, knowledge and activities of ordinary people. Through such work it becomes possible to generate a "history from below", a community history by and for local people. Indeed, the Ballymun Oral History Project starts from the idea that a community is the result of what people have done. So, for example, the project participants might focus on the history of different movements within the community over the years. Also of importance is that oral history has the potential to explore people's activity at all levels - from neighbourly acts of kindness or mutual aid, to larger scale local movements like tenants' associations.
Community ownership, participation and control of decision making at all levels of the project are essential. Pat McBride and Laurence Cox (who are working on the project) need local people to "come on board" in order to build a successful project. Furthermore, local involvement is the key to creating a sustainable project, as Pat and Laurence's involvement will cease after 12 months (roughly September 2001), at which time it is hoped that the project will continue in community hands. In recent weeks, Pat and Laurence have begun the process of active consultation with the community, which is being undertaken to find out what local people think of the idea, to see how they would like the project to develop and if they are interested in becoming involved.
A question on some readers' lips might now be - "Well, how can I become involved?" One route to participation is clear at this stage. Between now and Christmas, Pat and Laurence will be seeking to bring together a team of 15 - 20 local people who, in the New Year, will start a training course in oral history methods. The training is free of charge, and work is currently underway towards making training allowances available to participants. It is the participants themselves who will decide what themes in Ballymun history to research, who to interview, what questions to ask, and what to do with the results. Furthermore, Pat and Laurence are hoping that as the project progresses, people themselves will identify various ways that they could take part, for example, as researchers, members of a local steering committee or in some other way.
It is critical to bear in mind that the agenda, the process, and the products of the oral history project will be determined and created by local people's interests. The oral history project, if it is to genuinely capture community history, must be born out of community ownership and direction. Pat and Laurence view their role as being to facilitate the creation by local people of just such a project. Indeed, if local people feel that the idea is of no interest, use or value, then it simply will not (and cannot) go ahead.
Would you like to find out more? Would you like to get involved? Do you have any thoughts, comments, suggestions or questions? Then don't hesitate to pick up the phone and contact Pat.
The first intro to this page, summer 2000
The Ballymun Oral History Project starts from two ideas. The first is that a community history is the history of how people have created that community - in other words a history of the movements, groups and everyday activities that have built Ballymun - which is one of the most successful fields of community action in contemporary Ireland. That history of action is a great resource, both for ordinary people in Ballymun who want to change things, but also for communities throughout Ireland who have been learning from the Ballymun experience for many years now.
The second is that oral history is history from below, the history of what ordinary people pick out as significant in their experiences - providing quite a different picture than the state and media perceptions "from above". In keeping with this, the project will be training up to 30 local people as oral history researchers, and facilitating them to identify themes, choose and carry out interviews, code and analyse them and publish their findings for the use of people in the community, not for academia or the mainstream media.
The project is designed to become a community-based project within 12 months, as participants take increasing control of the day-to-day decisions and with the development of a community steering group to oversee the process. We hope that it will be possible for participants to go on to take a "training for trainers" course, so that the project is fully autonomous and its long-term sustainability is guaranteed.