Research / Consultation

Service Description

Dr Susan H. Motherway offers research consultation for cultural, educational, heritage and community organisations seeking to understand, document, evaluate or activate living traditions. Her work is grounded in ethnomusicology, applied research, cultural sustainability and long-standing engagement with Irish traditional music, song, dance and folk performance. She brings particular expertise in North Kerry, Sliabh Luachra, Siamsa Tíre, folk theatre, community arts, cultural mapping and the relationship between local practice, memory and place. Research consultation may support organisations at different stages of a project. Susan can help shape a research question, design a community consultation process, develop a funding proposal, identify relevant archives and sources, map local cultural assets, conduct interviews, review existing documentation, or translate research findings into public-facing outputs. Her approach is especially suited to projects that sit between scholarship, community engagement and cultural action. Areas of consultation include traditional music and dance heritage, local song and repertoire, intangible cultural heritage, cultural tourism, community archives, oral history, festival development, participatory arts, heritage interpretation, programme evaluation and digital cultural heritage. Susan can advise on how to gather material ethically, work with tradition bearers, frame local knowledge respectfully, and create outputs that are useful to both communities and funders. Consultation can take the form of a one-off advisory session, a project design meeting, a written scoping report, a cultural mapping plan, a research framework, an evaluation report, or ongoing support across a funded project. Susan can also assist with public engagement strategies, helping organisations move from archive to workshop, from research to performance, or from local memory to sustainable cultural programming. Her research practice is rigorous, collaborative and practical. She is interested not only in preserving cultural material, but in asking what communities can do with it: how it can support learning, identity, intergenerational transmission, artistic practice, place-making and local development. Her work helps organisations clarify what they have, what matters, who needs to be involved, and how cultural knowledge can be carried forward with care. Research consultation is suitable for arts centres, local authorities, heritage groups, festivals