Duchas.ie is a project to digitize the National Folklore Collection of Ireland, one of the largest folklore collections in the world. All 26 counties of the Republic are now represented. The free website contains handwritten stories by schoolchildren collected between 1937 and 1939. The children interviewed their parents and grandparents and wrote down local folklore, riddles, customs, proverbs and songs in order to save them for future generations. Over 500,000 pages of material have been digitized, representing 5000 schools and 50,000 primary school students.

The free website is easily searchable by people, place or topic. I queried 'Cahernahallia', one of our family's townlands of origin, which brought up items collected from that school. On the first page was the story of "Hidden Treasure" written by Teresa O'Dwyer of Toomaline Doon, County Limerick, and attributed to her father. Coincidentally my husband's 2X great-grandmother was Margaret O'Dwyer of Cahernahallia. Although located in County Tipperary, Cahernahallia is very close to the border of County Limerick and the townland of Toomaline.

(Logainm.ie, the Placenames Database of Ireland, is just a click away from Duchas.ie which expedites geographical research!) It's fascinating to see the children's handwriting and read their amusing stories - and perhaps find hints about an ancestor or discover a distant relative. Take a look and see what you find: www.duchas.ie/en/.