Invite to those interested in Irish history, theatre or archival work to take part in unique 'Letters from the Margins: James Cheasty Archive Project'
Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), as part of a summer research project within the School of Humanities will host a project to authenticate and consider original correspondence from the 1950s and 1960s relating to the Waterford playwrights Teresa Deevy and James Cheasty.
The project will be guided by Dr Una Kealy and Dr Kate McCarthy, lecturers in Theatre Studies and English in SETU and specialists in archival research and educational facilitation and who have presented nationally and internationally on Deevy’s work.
Important discovery
“The letters from Deevy to Cheasty, which were donated to SETU in 2016 by the family of the late James Cheasty, are a unique and important discovery to Irish theatre scholars. Members of the Performing the Region research group, based in SETU, invite those interested in Irish history, theatre or archival work to take part in this unique project,” explains Dr McCarthy.
“Participation is free and those interested need not have any experience in academic or archival research as this will be provided by the project team – the only requirement is that those who wish to take part are armed with an enthusiastic desire to work and learn collaboratively with supervision from the project team,” says Dr Kealy.
Interpretation of valuable documents
As the work involves the handling and interpretation of valuable original archival documents participants are required to be over 18 years of age. The project is designed to include participants of all ages and no upper age limit applies.
The Letters from the Margins project will take place on three days between Monday 10 June 2019 to Friday 14 June 2019 (dates to be confirmed).
Visit to National Library
The project will involve a field visit to Dublin to authenticate a representative sample of the correspondence and also to the Manuscripts Library within the National Library of Ireland. Participants will incur no costs but are required to commit three days to the project (two half-days in Waterford and one full day which will be spent in Dublin). The project will be written up for publication by members of the Performing the Research team in SETU.
If you are interested in participating or if you would like to learn more about the BA Arts degree programme in SETU, please contact Dr Una Kealy at [email protected] by Friday, 7 June.