Introduction

Although historical study is most often associated with the search for facts, combining fiction with historical events can also be a useful approach to studying history. The Famine Families Project seeks to promote the study of the Irish Famine by using fictional characters to demonstrate historical events. Now nearing the end of its first year, the Famine Families Project is founded upon the research and organizational work of history professors and graduate students and incorporates the research and writing of undergraduate students. The experience of researching the Famine for this project has enabled all of the participants to empathize with the trials of the Irish people during the Great Hunger and their struggles to build new lives in its aftermath. The project has turned out to be an excellent way to interest undergraduates in the study of the Irish Famine in particular and Irish history in general. The project also provides a prototype for other projects of this nature.

The Famine Families Project itself had a rather humble beginning. In the Fall of 1999, Holly Gillogly and Jim Riordan, graduate students at Emporia State University and two of the site's authors, were taking an environmental history class called Plagues, Plants, and People. As a final assignment, the class was instructed to create some project that related to environmental history. Jim wanted to do a paper on the Irish Potato Famine and Holly wanted to do a project that utilized fictional characters to demonstrate historical events. They decided to collaborate, and the Famine Families Project was born. Holly and Jim created a fictional Irish family, the MacGilligans, and traced their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren through the Famine years and beyond, constructing for each member a life experience based on historical accounts of the experiences of Irish people during the Famine and the diaspora.

Needless to say, Holly and Jim passed their class, but the project also attracted the interest of Dr. Karen Manners Smith, a history professor at ESU. Dr. Smith decided to incorporate the project into an Irish history class she was teaching the next semester. Under Jim and Holly's guidance, the students in the Irish history class were divided into groups. Each group was given a section of the family and told to conduct research on the Famine and expand on some of the stories already sketched in the original project. The students then presented their expanded stories to the class in the form of oral reports or power point presentations. Others used dramatic methods such as mock family reunions and talk shows. It was at this point that Holly, Jim, and Dr. Smith decided to create a website to make both the original project and the students' projects available to the public.

Currently this site contains the materials from the original project and a few of the stories that the students produced in the Irish history class. More will be added later. We will also begin accepting revised stories from the public to be placed on this site.

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