Irish History on the Web covers all aspects of Irish history including social, political, literary, study programs, and photos. Developed by Jacqueline Dana, this searchable site combines primary research documents, original essays and links to many other sites; making this a very comprehensive site for locating information on Irish history.
Since Irish History on the Web is a portal to the thousands of resource materials on Irish history, users will leave this site to access a great deal of the material. In order to return to your main search page, visitors must use the back button on their browser to do additional research, or right click on a link to open a new window which allows toggling back and forth between the main site and links pages.
Entry into the site can be achieved by several methods. Users may wish to click on one of the 16 general topics listed atop the page surrounding the Irish History on the Web logo. These same links can be found at the bottom of the page just below the search box but are not available anywhere else on the site. The search box is useful for searching a topic that may be found in more than one of the general topic pages.
The search engine used for this site, FreeFind, is somewhat limited in scope and usability. In order to get search tips, users must first enter a term(s) and do a search. This results in either a page of links with a brief description or a message indicating there are no matches. The search box can only be found on the main page of the site or on a search results page.
Alongside the search box are three options: new; refine; and Web.
The refine option is not very useful, and neither is the Web search option, since the FreeFind search engine is not very strong for Web searching.
The 16 general topics found on the main page offer links that include not only general history of Ireland but also the famous potato famine, the Easter Rising, current events, maps, images, and universities offering Irish study programs. Several of the broad topics found on the main page are subdivided into specific topics to assist users in finding the exact information needed. Because Irish History on the Web has links to such a wide variety of resources, users may wish to browse the various links found on the major topic pages to get a feel for how the site is organized.
Again, because FreeFind is not the best search engine, I would not rely on it totally as a means for locating the various materials found on this site. Users will also find that many of the links have a brief comment or source of content that is helpful in determining if a particular link will be useful.
Regarding the site’s organization, I will mention that another link that can be found once the search page is brought up is a site map. This is not necessarily a first hand method of accessing the site, but it does offer an outline approach to the site.
I recommend the “what’s new on this site” page to see what links or primary source materials have been most recently added. Many of the links found on Irish History on the Web are to materials found on the Irish Internet Hub site (http://larkspirit.com/ general/irishhub.html). This is one of the 16 links found on the main page, since it supports the Irish History site by offering additional resources on Ireland such as newspapers, political climate, organizations, etc.
Other sites include Chronology of Ireland (http://homepage.eircom.net/{chronology) and Eolas Na hEireann (http://homepage. tinet.ie/{kthomas). The Longing for Ireland site (http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Study/ 6941/irelandhome.html) also has some rather interesting and unique material.
While the Web sites listed above offer some of the same material, the Irish History on the Web site is by far the most comprehensive in the coverage of the political and cultural development of Ireland. Highly recommended for all academic libraries.
