What was the challenge? 

Áine’s original website was built on an old website provider, and she was looking for a new place to present the data she had already gathered and enable the public to upload a range of information easily and without delay.

As much of her research is based on alleys specifically, there was a clear spatial element and she began exploring ways to represent the data on a map to make it more accessible than a regular blog format would allow.

The new platform would need to be multimedia and have a way of labelling certain pieces of content with search terms and tags, to make them easy to find as well as to allow Áine to present spatial patterns in the distribution of the alleys (the Collections) that explain the emergence of this building type. It also needed to display data spatially, but not require extensive experience of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software.

As Áine’s project picked up steam the GAA became interested in supporting and adding a crowdsourcing element, too. 

Pictured left: curated collections on the Irish Handball Alley interactive heritage map 

Why Humap?

Áine’s project began on our individual tier – a flexible and cost-effective way of putting lots of multimedia data on a map that’s no harder to use than a basic website creator. In no time at all she was able to create a one-of-a-kind resource for handball history. 

Our Contribute system lets users create content on Humap, and the project team used this to gather information about handball history from the public. They needed a crowdsourcing system that had spatial capabilities to it, but wouldn’t scare away any users with complicated GIS interfaces.

Pictured left: the Shamrock Tavern, Ferrard Cross, Co. Louth record on Irish Handball Alley