Original coloured drawing of the Clonmacnoise Crozier by Margaret Stokes (1832-1900), donated 1882, alongside her ‘Early Christian Art in Ireland’, publ. 1887.
On 1 October 2021, the three-year AHRC funded research project Beyond Notability: Re-Evaluating Women’s Work in Archaeology, History and Heritage 1870-1939 began. Led by Principal Investigator Professor Katherine Harloe (Director, Institute of Classical Studies), Co-Investigator Dr James Baker (Director of Digital Humanities, University of Southampton, and Co-Investigator Dr Amara Thornton FSA (Research Fellow, Institute of Classical Studies), the project partners with the Society of Antiquaries of London to capture, map, and make publicly available women’s lives and experiences as recorded the Society’s rich institutional archive. By employing Linked Open Data and inclusive cataloguing methodologies, the project will produce a unique open-access dataset of these women, alongside an open-access monograph with detailed historical analyses. As they build up a picture of women’s contributions from the Society’s records the team will also draw on a network of linked institutional archives to enrich the dataset.
In addition to the planned research outputs, Beyond Notability will also produce a range of public engagement events, timed to coincide with International Women’s Day. These public engagement events will focus on the creation of illuminating and rich narratives to highlight the importance of women’s contributions to the heritage landscape. Women were actively recording and researching, preserving and promoting historical and archaeological records throughout the period under study. The public engagement strand of the Beyond Notability project will explore how we can best incorporate these histories into Wikipedia and public history projects, and more specific site and museum interpretation, through open data, knowledge exchange, and compelling storytelling.
Follow the progress of the Beyond Notability project via the project website, www.beyondnotability.org, or on Twitter @beyondnotables. For more information, contact the team by email at [email protected].