The MultiText Project in History (http://www.multitext.ie) has created a set of dynamic history books and free Internet learning tools to meet the specific requirements of students of Modern Irish History at all levels: University students, the general reader, and second-level students. The project was established by Professor Donnchadh Ó Corráin in 2000.

It is written by leading scholars, national and international, working closely with teachers, historians, and academics in research-related areas. MultiText has a strong North–South profile. It is one of the largest outreach projects of any subject in any discipline at University College Cork. Students and teachers can now access over one million words of text (essays, primary documents and bibliographies) and approximately 3,580 graphics (photographs, cartoons etc.) on the website. Research findings have shown that the use of “pedagogical-visual-digital” approach assists learners to draw “historical meaning … from new, relatively unfamiliar types of sources and presented to a public increasingly accustomed to visual communication” [Garvey et al., “Ways of Seeing: Evidence and Learning in the History Classroom” Journal of American History, March 2006, p. 1402].

MultiText is finalising six books on Modern Irish history (1815–2000), and a further six books covering the Early Modern period (1494–1814) are in preparation. The website has a powerful search facility for speedy navigation. The search facility also allows users to simultaneously search the website of our sister project CELT (http://www.ucc.ie/celt).

The Irish Department of Education History In-Service Team has been using MultiText materials in its In-Service training for History teachers across the country. A History In-Service Team CD-ROM, containing 150,000 words of text and 1,500 graphics, provided by MultiText, was distributed free of charge to every post-primary school in Ireland. The History In-Service Team National Co-ordinator, Dr Pat Callan, congratulated the Project and its Director for creating a ‘unique and powerful learning environment for Irish history’. The MultiText Project has part funded twelve graduate students of history since its inception. These students developed important skills of interpretation, critical analysis and digital editing. These are highly marketable skills, inside and outside the academic world.

The project is managed by Tomás O’Riordan, and co-edited with Donnchadh Ó Corráin. Technical support for the project is provided by Mr Tiarnán Ó Corráin.