The Linen Hall Library holds world-renowned collections and always seeks ways to make those collections as available to the general public as possible. One of the ways we do this is through project funding. Below is a list of funded projects that are currently active at the Linen Hall.
Making the Future – Women in the Archives
Making the Future is a major cultural heritage project delivered by a consortium of partners, the Nerve Centre, National Museums Northern Ireland, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland and Linen Hall Library.
The cultural and heritage organisations are leading a change programme of cultural engagement, creativity and skills development across Northern Ireland and border counties, supported by the European Union’s PEACE IV Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB).
Over three years, the Making the Future project will explore the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland and border counties in ROI and empower ordinary people to create a powerful vision for future change.
Through a programme of interconnected activities, the project will use significant objects, collections and archives as a stimulus to pose challenging questions about the past, ‘take the temperature’ of where we are at currently as a society, and create potential solutions for our future well-being.
Participants and audiences will have multiple opportunities to get involved, to have their voices heard, to tell stories relevant to their lives, and to make a positive contribution, changing themselves and society along the way.
Culture Lab: Making the Future
Examining identity and culture through a major interactive and participatory programme
Troubles Art
Exhibition of related art from National Museums NI collections, touring border counties
Partition
Exploring partition and the emergence of new social and political states
Creative Centenaries
Digital creativity programme of Hothouses linked to key centenaries in Ireland’s past
Women in the Archives
Uncovering hidden and untold stories from the archives of Linen Hall Library and PRONI
Conflict to Peace
Intergenerational programme examining our recent past through community loan box resources
100 Shared Stories
Creating shareable digital stories from the archives at PRONI reflecting on last 100 years
Cultural Fusion
Filmmaking programme with ethnic minority communities, exploring culture and identity
Making the Future Oral Archive
Development of an oral archive featuring participants across Making the Future
Funded by:
Partners:
extraOrdinarywomen
‘
Women’s history needs to be told accurately and correctly and it needs to be celebrated, for the women that we were, the women that we’ve become because of those women, and the women that our children become because of the generation before.’*
The extraORDINARYwomen project is a major undertaking that will make tens of thousands of pages and images from a selection of the Library’s world-renowned archives accessible online for the very first time. The project will focus on the social experience of women in Northern Ireland from 1965 through the ‘Troubles’ and beyond, thanks to funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund Northern Ireland, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Reconciliation Fund (Ireland), and The Foyle Foundation.
The project will see approximately 50,000 pages and images of the Linen Hall Library’s most significant collections – including the Northern Ireland Political Collection, LGBTQ+ Archive, Literary Archives, Travellers’ Collection and the Theatre & Performing Arts Archive –digitised, conserved and shared to create a better understanding of the lives and experiences of our community’s extraORDINARYwomen.
An exciting activity programme will help to share this heritage with wider audiences through a series of exhibitions, workshops, living library and pop up events which will be delivered alongside the project.
By preserving and widening access to the Linen Hall Library’s collections, extraORDINARYwomen will fulfil the dual purpose of enriching understanding of Northern Irish culture, and the role of women within it, and holding the collections in trust for future generations. It will honour the community’s shared heritage, build its confidence and open pathways to international collaboration.
*comment from a participant in one of the extraORDINARYwomen development phase focus groups.
Funded by:
Department for Trade and Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund (Ireland):
The Reconciliation Fund is operated by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It awards grants to organisations working to build better relations within and between traditions in Northern Ireland, between North and South, and between Ireland and Britain. https://www.dfa.ie/reconciliation
The Foyle Foundation:
The Foyle Foundation is an independent grant-making trust that distributes grants to UK charities. http://www.foylefoundation.org.uk/
The National Lottery Heritage Fund Northern Ireland:
The National Lottery Heritage Fund is the largest dedicated funder of heritage in the UK. https://www.heritagefund.org.uk/in-your-area/northern-ireland
