FAS trainees working on a local history project in Co Clare were not prepared for the emotions they felt when reading first-hand accounts of the Famine.
Their work, which included perusing the minutes of meetings of a workhouse board of governors, has resulted in a presentation of 18,000 photocopied pages of source material, bound in 60 volumes, to the county council.
The Clare Local Studies Project (CLASP), with the FAS trainees who are known as "Claspers", set about compiling the volumes with primary source material taken from surveys, maps and newspaper cuttings, and with works whose copyright has run out.
A long-forgotten Bord Failte survey from 1948 provided rich pickings.
Much of the work is computer-based, and the trainees qualify for a City & Guilds certificate in Word and Excel over six months. So far, about 90 trainees have worked on the source book project since it began in 1995.
CLASP's mission statement is to develop awareness of and increase access to sources for local studies. Its other main activity is in publishing books, either reissuing books which are out of print, such as Mary John Knott's Two Months at Kilkee, or compiling articles on a similar theme in book form like The Stranger's Gaze - Travels in County Clare 1534-1950.
It is the source material, though, presented in covers of marbled paper and quarter-leather binding, which looks the most impressive. "It is a simple concept but the funny thing is, nobody every thought of it before," says Mr Anthony Edwards, a CLASP member. "You photocopy printed material about an area, you list the contents in chronological order and you bind it in a nice presentation."
The project demands huge amounts of work hours. "If we were confined to library staff, we would never get it done," says Ms Maureen Comber, another CLASP member.
Three sets of each volume have been made. One will go to the county's Local Studies Centre, another will go to the branch library nearest to the area surveyed, and the third will be kept by CLASP, although all the material will eventually appear on its website.
Much of the impetus for the project came from the widespread interest people in the area express in local history and, especially, genealogy. Local studies courses have been run in conjunction with NUI Galway and UCC, and the University of Limerick runs a masters course in local history. A further eight volumes are being compiled, providing a valuable reference tool for students and researchers, and bringing the number of areas surveyed to 27. Lisdoonvarna is unique in getting two volumes because of the material available on the north Clare town.