Tag Archives: Ireland.ie

Being Irish is more complicated, more diverse and more interesting than we might sometimes acknowledge.

The 2016 Easter Rising centenary commemorations offered an opportunity to explore these intricacies with a once-in-a-lifetime invitation to everyone.

Unsurprisingly, by late 2015 with the centenary year looming, economic storms, divisive violence and ideological hijacking had left many of us feeling uneasy or apathetic about where our place was in these upcoming commemorations.

Words and website

Helming the Government’s metaphorical centenary shopfront, what was then Ireland.ie, my role as the site’s content manager and writer meant that every word, image and subheading had to be deliberated over and viewed from every angle.

Working with creative/production agency bigO, I had a compact team of junior writers to manage and a keen understanding of our duty to write potentially politically-charged content with a distinctly neutral voice. Manoeuvring around missteps was a daily task. And that was before departmental approval, Irish language translations and actual content publishing even came into it.

The website content I wrote, managed and curated over late 2015 and into the whole of 2016 was engaged with and shared at home and abroad. At the centenary’s height, Ireland.ie saw almost one and half a million visits.

1,000s of events, 100s of stories, two languages

With the Ireland 2016 Programme Team engaging with partners such as local authorities, government agencies and cultural and educational institutes, the centenary’s enormous calendar of events was a daunting one to represent online. Added to that, the fact that every piece of content had to be translated into Irish – delivered to the translators via a special CMS plugin, and then uploaded and published separately; every task was really two rolled into one. And every tweak to copy? Well, that really had to be worth making and sending back for translation.

Over the lifespan of the project, I liaised daily with the Department’s internal team and stakeholder partners to write, source imagery for and upload the 1,000+ commemorative event descriptions that took place worldwide, from Ahascragh to Australia.

Delving into the archives

The website’s flagship content was the 100+ historic stories and engaging news items I researched, wrote and curated across the year. With incredible access to the eyewitness statements, personal letters and military accounts in Óglaigh na hÉireann’s Military Archives, I was able to shine a light on the Rising leaders’ poignant Last Letters, Last Words with specially crafted content.

Through detailed research and generous access to imagery from the National Library of Ireland, I also curated content remembering the 40 civilians under the age of 16 who lost their lives in the Rising’s conflict with The Children of 1916.

To coincide with the anniversaries of the Rising leaders’ deaths, I created the commemoration-specific landing page, The Executed, and wrote subtle but emotive copy in remembrance. Each piece of content was published on the individual anniversary, meaning the page was populated day by day – adding to the content’s impact.

The website content was also kept fresh by commissioning several articles from well-known historians, writers and academics across the year.

During the height of the commemorations at Easter 2016, Ireland.ie received a staggering 1.25 million page views

I also scripted a number of the Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme’s many videos, commemorating a wealth of historic moments and initiatives, from important dates to cultural events.

Awards

The Ireland.ie site won the Best in Public Service award at the 2017 Digital Media Awards; and both Best Arts and Culture Website and Best Website in Ireland at the Realex Web Awards 2016.