About Industrial Memories


Industrial Memories is a unique digital humanities collaboration between UCD School of English, Drama and Film and the Insight Centre.

In 2015 the Industrial Memories project was awarded funding under the Irish Research Council New Horizons scheme. This funding has enabled us to create a web resource with a central mission: to diversify, and increase, the ways that the public can access the findings of the Ryan Report.

The project lead, Emilie Pine, says of this web resource: “The Ryan Report is one of the most significant publications in the history of the Irish state. And yet almost no one reads it.

The Industrial Memories project arose from our concerns about the story of Irish childhood abuse that the Ryan Report tries to tell. We wondered how to witness this history. We wondered how we could better understand the story. We wondered how we could tell a different story.”

Project Team

Emilie Pine is Associate Professor of Modern Drama at University College Dublin. She has published widely in the field of theatre and performance, ethical memory, and Irish institutional history. Emilie is Principal Investigator on the Industrial Memories project (2015-18). Emilie is also Editor of the Irish University Review and Director of the Irish Memory Studies Network.

Emilie’s books include: The Politics of Irish Memory: Performing Remembrance in Contemporary Irish Culture (Palgrave, 2011), The Memory Marketplace: Performing Witnessing in Contemporary Theatre (forthcoming Indiana University Press, 2019), and Notes to Self: Personal Essays (Tramp Press, 2018).

Contact: Emilie.Pine@ucd.ie


Mark Keane is a Professor and Chair of Computer Science at University College Dublin (since 1998). From 2004-2007 he was Director of ICT (2004-2006) and Director General (2006-2007) at Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) where he oversaw a 700M+ euro research investment. He was also VP of Innovation at UCD.

Since, 2014 he has been a PI in the Insight Data Analytics Centre working on Text Analytics for Digitial Journalism and the Digitial Humanities. He has a BA (UCD) and PhD (TCD) in Cognitive Psychology and previously worked in University of London, the Open University, Cardiff University and Trinity College Dublin (FTCD, 1994).

He has made several research contributions in Cognitive Psychology (on creativity and natural language) and Artificial Intelligence (on case-based reasoning and data analytics).


Susan Leavy is a postdoctoral fellow in UCD working with Insight Centre for Data Analytics and the School of English Drama and Film on the Industrial Memories project. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from Trinity College Dublin, where her work used artificial intelligence and text analytics to detect gender bias in media coverage of political news.

She has an MSc in Artificial Intelligence from Edinburgh University, an MPhil in Gender and Women's studies from Trinity College Dublin and a BA in Philosophy and English Literature from UCD. She has also worked internationally as an analyst and programme manager in financial technology in the investment banking sector.

Her main research interests concern the use of artificial intelligence and data analytics to discover new insights from large collections of texts.

The Echoes from the Past Team

Composer and sound designer Tom Lane studied composition at the University of Oxford, the Royal Academy of Music and the Berlin University of the Arts. He recently completed his PhD in composition at University College Cork. He has been nominated for an Irish Times Theatre Award on five occasions, most recently for his 2017 opera Front Of House. In 2015 Tom's sound design represented Ireland at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design. Further information about his work can be found at www.tom-lane.com.

Maeve Casserly is a PhD candidate in University College Dublin researching the centenary commemorations of the Easter Rising and the Somme across the island of Ireland. She works as an Education Assistant in the National Library of Ireland and is the 2017/2018 Historian in Residence for Dublin South-East area with Dublin City Council.

The ‘Echoes from the Past’ mobile app was designed by Cork-based app developer Mick O’Brien whose previous location triggered projects have featured in The Dublin Festival of Curiosity.

The voice recording artists are Mark FitzGerald, Karen Ardiff, Hilda Fay, Úna Kavanagh and Deirdre Molloy.

The I.S. Complex Explore Carriglea Team

John Buckley is a digital artist, researcher and educator, lecturing in 3D Modelling, VFX and VR at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT), Dun Laoghaire, and also working as a real-time graphics specialist at post-production house Noho, Dublin. His practice is focused on virtual and augmented reality technologies and real-time visualisation. His research converges on the political economy of online video-game culture and the philosophy, politics and modalities of perception in digital cultures. He graduated from NCAD with an MA in Virtual Realities, Fine Art Media and BA in Printmaking & History of Art.

The I.S. Complex includes an interactive score by sound artist Sharon Phelan.