Less than a week into the project, we had the opportunity to outline the project to the School of Irish Learning at UCC. It was great to start on such a positive note. We got a great response from the attendees, who shared their stories of their families’ past encounters with infectious diseases. 

Here is a link to the recording of the seminar. 

Heritage Week 19th August 2022 Listening Event.

We had an incredibly successful Heritage Week talk in Cork City Library Grand Parade. This was the first real outing for the team to present the project, and we couldn’t have been happier with the turnout and the response. The event consisted of a presentation of audio collected to this point along with contextual information from project coordinator James Furey.

Culture Night 19th September 2022

Our pop-up Culture Night event has been the highlight so far. The team donned their white coats and set up a ‘time travelling’ vaccination clinic outside the old medical centre on Grattan St Cork City. Willing participants sat on a bench and heard Joe Scanlon’s story of receiving the ‘Branding Iron’, Joe’s term for the vaccine apparatus used in the 1950s. Joe’s story, and the event elicited a great response from those who took part.

Celebrate Science Family Day 13th November 2022

Our first outing for Cork Science Festival was at the ‘Celebrate Science’ Family Day at University College Cork’s Western Gateway Building. For this event, we fired up the ‘Time-machine’ to bring participants on a trip to 1958, the day Joe Scanlon received a vaccine, or as Joe calls it, ‘The Branding Iron’.

The Catching Stories team held four sessions. We played Joe’s story and quizzed our audience on their knowledge of infectious diseases and their memory of receiving vaccines. There was excellent engagement with both young and old. The younger participants left with a greater understanding of diseases like polio and tuberculosis. And the older members relayed their stories of getting vaccinated and how infectious diseases had encroached on their lives.

Exhibition January – June 2023