How we work: We invite people to share their stories of Dublin’s tenements.

Your Tenement Memories is a series of ongoing conversations with people across the city that gathers memories of tenement life in Dublin for 14 Henrietta Street. By listening and learning, we preserve and share stories and connect people to the heritage of our city. This ongoing oral history project captures living memories of tenement life in Dublin. Through this collaborative project, we have engaged with individuals and communities across Dublin and the suburbs since 2019.

Your Tenement Memories plays an integral role in the museum and invites people, including former residents of the house, to share their memories, which are recorded digitally for the 14 Henrietta Street Collection. Our Engagement Coordinators, with prior training in oral history gathering, collect the stories and experiences of the people of Dublin through audio and written testimonies.

We gather memories and stories of Dublin in order to understand people’s experiences of tenement life and the city, and we respond to and share them through programming, publications and the tours of 14 Henrietta Street. These stories continue to add to the tour guides’ accounts of life in tenement Dublin, and the first hand accounts of the lives of those who lived in and close to Henrietta street, are incorporated throughout the tours. You can find out how to participate here.

As part of our Company goals, we share our learnings to add to the cultural story of the city. We also aim to share our collaborative processes, which place people at the centre of everything we do. We do this in various ways to make our work and the way that we do it accessible to a wide range of people.

We are delighted to have been accepted to present our learnings on Your Tenement Memories at the annual conference of the Oral History Network of Ireland. The theme of this conference is “Oral History and Identity” and our Engagement Coordinator Tracey Bardon is presenting the importance of preserving people’s memories and collecting oral history accounts of everyday life.

We have also shared our experience of the Your Tenement Memories project internationally through an article “Collecting Memory: 14 Henrietta Street and Oral History” written by our Social Historian Donal Fallon. This article highlights how oral history has played a crucial role in shaping the museum's guided tours and programming. This article is now available on the use platform which is dedicated to promoting sustainable urban development. This international platform showcases successful programmes, projects and policies and connects citymakers who work in this field. You can find the article here.

 

If you, or someone you know, would be interested in sharing a personal story of life in Dublin's tenements, please contact us to arrange a chat with a member of our team. You can call us on 01 524 0383 or email us at memories@14henriettastreet.ie.