Catching Stories: Testimony of Infectious Disease in Ireland

Twentieth-century vaccination initiatives have been victims of their own success in Ireland and elsewhere, in part due to a loss of awareness of the human cost of such diseases. Collecting and sharing community memories of once-common diseases will make these stories available to the public again, and will contribute to public discourse in the field of vaccine hesitancy. We have created a pilot web resource, ‘Catching Stories’, which showcases how cultural heritage methods and platforms can be used to enhance public engagement with past and present experiences of infectious disease and vaccination in Ireland. Visitors can listen to what it was like to live in a family ravaged by TB, lose a classmate to measles, or lose two stone through the sweat of fear when queueing up for ‘the branding iron’ of 1960s childhood vaccination. By presenting this oral testimony side-by-side with relevant biomedical/disease commentary from an immunologist’s perspective, we offer multiple entry points to the topic; an opportunity to understand the scientific basis behind once-common diseases, and to associate that information with real-life experiences.

This multi-media platform will be significantly developed throughout 2021/22, and used in a range of public outreach and listening events, where the stories of real people, told in their own words, will allow the public to approach disease and vaccination through the interplay of human experience and scientific insight.