County Museum Dundalk Takes To The Airwaves

April 13, 2010 - PRLog -- County Museum Dundalk in Louth will host six hour-long episodes, the first of which will be broadcast on April 26, on various aspects of life and work in Louth’s capital town during the 20th century.

The internet broadcasts will focus primarily on the lives of people working in the local brewing, tobacco manufacturing and shoe manufacturing industries, as well the role and nature of education and entertainment in the Dundalk area.

The programmes are designed to assist schools with respect to local history studies with the preparation of a specialised worksheet dealing with each theme over the course of the broadcasts.  The worksheets, which will be available to download from the museum’s website, will feature photographs of the activity being discussed along with a unique insight into the dramatic changes in local life over the course of a lifetime.

Programme host and local radio broadcaster Harry Lee explained that the show will feature guests with first hand experience of working in local industries, and will provide an entertaining and informative glance at life in Dundalk during the 20th Century.  

“I believe that internet radio is the future and that this is a great way of making history interesting and relevant to a new generation. We are hoping to generate an atmosphere of a fireside conversation, making it an enjoyable experience for our guests and, of course, our listeners”, stated Mr. Lee.

According to Museum Curator, Brian Walsh: “We are trying to do something novel in the presentation of history to schools not only locally but internationally as well.  By broadcasting through our website, www.dundalkmuseum.ie, we are looking to develop a new audience, to make the museum and the collection interesting in a different way, and most importantly produce a publicly available archive of recorded material for future reference.”

He continued: “We hope to develop several aspects to this project including a series of programme worksheets, as well as a text and email facility that will enable our audience to ask questions they feel important.”  

The project’s technical adviser, Jason McGee of Jascom Limited commented: “This is an innovative technology that has not been used before.  The younger generation are well used to using computers to find information so we thought it would be a good idea to use the internet to provide a history lesson”.

Running order for live webcasts:
-   Education, Monday 26th April
-   Brewing, Monday 10th May
-   Tobacco and cigarette manufacture, Monday 17th May
-   Shoe manufacture, Monday 24th May
-   Printing, Monday 31st May
-   Entertainment, Monday 14th June

Further information on the live history project is available from Brian Walsh at 042 9327056, or on the museum website: www.dundalkmuseum.ie.

-ENDS-

Notes To Editor:
-   High resolution images relating to this story may be downloaded from http://www.dunphypr.com/?p=3809
For further information please contact Mark Dunphy of Dunphy Public Relations on 086-8534900 or media@dunphypr.com