St. Patrick’s hall in Corofin, Co.Clare and a few locations in the surrounding Burren area will be the venues for a day long programme of events celebrating community action for Heritage on Saturday 20th of August.
This celebration which will take place during Heritage Week is being hosted by Burrenbeo Trust, a landscape charity that has been engaged in heritage education and community-led conservation for over 20 years.
Áine Bird, Coordinator of Burrenbeo Trust says, “Many community groups and schools around Ireland are working on inspiring initiatives to enhance their local built, natural, and cultural heritage. This event aims to bring these groups together, along with those thinking of setting up new groups, to learn, share and celebrate action.”
Along with networking opportunities, attendees will be able to participate in workshops and field-trips relevant to their communities. Themes of the workshops include planting for nature, citizen science, oral history recording, the do’s and don’ts of creating ponds, working with local monuments, setting up groups and keeping the momentum going.
Kate Lavender, coordinator of the Burrenbeo Conservation Volunteers group says, “Working with community groups over the years has shown us the value of groups learning from each other. They are the ones that know best what works and doesn’t work in community settings and this ethos is the driving force behind our upcoming event. The event will showcase examples of projects and groups from different places and at different stages of their work so there’s something there for anyone that’s already involved in local heritage projects or people that would like to get something started in their area”.
Along with community groups in Clare, it is expected that groups from counties Mayo, Waterford, Meath, Clare, Dublin, Mayo and Cork that have completed their Heritage Keepers training with Burrenbeo will also attend. Part of the programme is also a food workshop with William Mc Elhinney from Wild Strands on connecting with local heritage food, which will culminate in a community feast for all attendees. The event will also include the launch of the Clare Stories of Change exhibition where Clare based changemakers will share their climate actions.
Communities for Heritage event is supported by The Heritage Council. This event is open to all and welcomes anyone involved with community heritage groups, community biodiversity groups, Tidy towns groups, community development organisations or similar groups. Tickets will cost €20 pp for the entire day including the community feast.
For further info and booking visit burrenbeo.com/cfh