The Heritage Council National Heritage Awards shine a spotlight on Ireland’s heritage heroes and showcase the most engaging and innovative National Heritage Week events.
At a special Awards ceremony in the Royal Irish Academy on Dawson Street, Dublin last Wednesday, MC Mary Kennedy commended communities and individuals all over the country who in total organised 5,300 events in Ireland to celebrate Heritage Week in August 2018. Prizes were presented on the day by Minister Seán Kyne, accompanied by Virginia Teehan, the newly appointed CEO of the Heritage Council and Michael Parsons, Chairperson of the Heritage Council.
Awards were presented in five different categories:
Heritage Hero Award –
The Heritage Hero Award celebrates an individual who always goes the extra mile for heritage, who makes an outstanding contribution to the protection and promotion of heritage in Ireland. We would like to say huge congratulations to Eugene Dunbar from Co. Westmeath, who was chosen from 592 entries under this category.
Le Cheile san Eoraip Awards
As part of European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 the new Le Cheile san Eoraip Award recognises event organisers who explore Ireland’s heritage connections with other places in Europe. Three prizes of €1,000 are awarded to the organisers of events during EYCH 2018.
Heritage Communities
The Heritage Communities Award recognises events that bring communities together to celebrate National Heritage Week.
Cool for Kids
The Cool for Kids Award recognises events that helped children learn about and enjoy heritage and encouraged children and families to participate in National Heritage Week.
Hidden Heritage Award –
The Hidden Heritage Award shines a light on Ireland’s hidden heritage. This award recognises event organisers who successfully explored lesser known aspects of Ireland’s heritage during National Heritage Week.
The Killaloe Ballina Local History Society were delighted and honoured to be shortlisted under this category for our Heritage Week event “Sharing Memories”, where we shared recordings from the Killaloe Heritage collection; a project which took place in the early 1990’s and involved interviewing and recording a number of older people from the Killaloe & Ballina area. These oral history projects capture the lives of the ordinary everyday people in our communities and give an insight into what these historical twin-towns were like to live in years ago. The Killaloe Heritage Collection is currently stored in the Local Studies Centre in Ennis and very few people are aware of its existence, including family members of those who were interviewed as part of this project.
The Killaloe-Ballina Local History Society has now digitised this entire collection of cassettes and we aim to make them available locally and online over the coming year.
We would like to say a huge thanks to all those who have assisted with this project.
Further details on Killaloe Ballina Local History Society, and this Oral History project, can be found on http://www.info---links.com
Killaloe-Ballina