Come Here To Me!

Last Thursday I took part in the excellent ‘Blogging The Humanities’ symposium organised by Pue’s Occurrences, the Irish history blog. The event took place in the beautiful and historic TRIAC (Trinity Irish Art Research Centre) building at Trinity College Dublin, on a day one can only describe as the stuff of Bord Fáilte advertisements.

A wide range of blogs and speakers participated, and I’d recommend having a quick glance over any of these sites which are unfamiliar to you.

Pue’s Occurences (A group history blog)
Ireland After NAMA (A blog established after a symposium in NUI Maynooth, which provides fascinating analysis of the crisis)
Some Blind Alleys (A literary blog with emphasis on creative writing)
Irish Left Archive (It’s likely you’re familiar with the Irish Left Archive if you’re a regular reader of our own site. A website I’ve lost hours of my life too, and most worthy of your time)
Sligo Model Weblog (The online presence of an art gallery in Sligo. I was very impressed by the use of audio-visual material when it comes to the gallery online)
History Compass Exchange( “This is the companion community site to Wiley-Blackwell’s online review journal, History Compass.” Surprised I’d missed this one. )
UCD Academic Blogging (A site which aims to introduce more academics to the idea of blogging, highlighting the merits of the format and providing information on academic blogging)

Two recaps on the day worthy of note are those of Pue’s themselves and an excellent and well rounded summary of the day at Ireland After NAMA. The later in particular deals at considerable length with several of the issues which emerged on the day, such as the relationship between blogs and their readers, editorial policy, archiving and academic credibility.

Still the medium of choice for some!

Personally, I used my speaking time to not alone detail the background of our own blog but also to put emphasis on the importance of traditional means of communication to advance the medium of blogging in Ireland. My first introduction to Pue’s Occurrences for example was the result of a well placed A4 page in the National Archives. I’ve found that on Come Here To Me, between the comments received here on the blog itself and the engagement with the Facebook page, that our readership is not quite as varied as I would like. This seems to apply across the board in the blogging community, and we have to ask how we get older generations online for example. For blogs like ourselves, with an emphasis on social history, this is something we have to look at now, as we don’t have the time to sit back. With greater engagement and broader participation, we can move blogging in this country further in the right direction.

My sincere thanks to Pue’s for inviting Come Here To Me to partake in the day, and also for taking on the workload involved in organising such an event. On a personal level, it’s great to meet the people behind a few of my favourite blogs in the flesh, away from the protection of our computer screens. It is worth noting many of our other favourite blogs are listed in our collective links on the right of this website.