An initiative to record surviving letters written by people who lived through the 1916 Rising and the first World War in a new online archive will take place at NUI Galway on Monday.

'Letters of 1916: A Year in the Life' is the first crowd-sourced humanities project of its kind to take place in Ireland and members of the public are invited to bring family letters along to the Galway event and to learn how the process works.

The letters will be uploaded to the internet and made available as part of a new national digital archive.

So far, the project has collected over 2,300 letters covering a variety of topics ranging from the Easter Rising to art, culture, family life and the first World War.

Professor Daniel Carey, Director of the Moore Institute at NUI Galway, said: “Through these letters the project is bringing to life the written words, the last words, the unspoken words and the forgotten words. It is creating an online collection for the public, created by the public, which is adding a new perspective to life in this period, a confidential glimpse into early 20th century Ireland and the politics of the era.”

A workshop will take place at the Nursing and Midwifery PC suite of the James Hardiman Library at NUI Galway.

The event will be followed by refreshments in room G010 of the James Hardiman Research building and a series of short talks by Professor Susan Schreibman, and Dr Sarah ­Anne Buckley, Dr Conor McNamara and Thérèse McIntyre from NUI Galway, based on letters from Galway.

For further information on Letters of 1916 visit: http://dh.tcd.ie/letters1916/