Imirce
Imirce provides access to thousands of letters, life stories and other documents composed by Irish emigrants to North America from the seventeenth through the mid-twentieth centuries.
In 2020–21, Pulitzer-shortlisted historian Prof. Kerby A. Miller, Emeritus Professor of History at University of Missouri and Honorary Professor of History at University of Galway, gifted the University a vast collection of emigrant correspondence and memoirs. These thousands of historical accounts from the Irish diaspora community in the U.S. and Ireland date from the late 1600s to the mid-1900s and were collected over a five-decade period. Prof. Miller’s initial gift led to the development of IMIRCE, a digital repository for the materials which over time is being made available online in bilingual format.
In the first phase of the project (2023-2024), letters and life stories from the Kerby A. Miller Collection were digitised, catalogued to item level and released to Imirce online.
The second phase of the project (from late 2024) involves an appeal to the public for additional emigrant letters and life stories composed in North America. Each new donation is assessed, accessioned, digitised (where necessary), catalogued to item level and released to Imirce online. This process is ongoing and the Imirce team is eager to source material in Irish and material, in Irish or English, written by people from Irish-speaking districts.
For more information on the Imirce Project contact Karen Sorensen on +353 86 075 9158 or email karen.sorensen@universityofgalway.ie.