Become a young heritage enthusiast this National Heritage Week

This year’s National Heritage Week theme is ‘Heritage and Education: Learning from our Heritage’.

Relearn skills from our past, discover what school was like for your parents, grandparents or great-grandparents, research the role your local river, lake or canal played in the growth of your town or city – there is so much to discover!

To help you along the way, heritage project organisers have shared their projects on the Heritage Week website, www.heritageweek.ie, which you can search to see what is taking place in your county.

Begin your heritage journey with these three videos from some of the Heritage Week projects:

A sense of place: biodiversity

Did you know that biodiversity is part of our heritage? During the COVID-19 lockdown, a group of young people from Laois create a series of videos about their sense of place. In this video, they show how their local biodiversity – the plants and wildlife nearby, inspire them.

Make your own hand-bell

Learn about the hand-bell that’s associated with St Patrick and use this video from the National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology to discover how you can make and decorate your own hand-bell at home using scrap paper, cut up card, and jam jar lids.

Young Explorer with Neil Hyland

Heritage enthusiast, 12-year-old Neil Hyland explores his local area of Caherdaniel, County Kerry. This video – looking at the World War 2 era look-out post at Lambs Head - is one of three that Neil shared as part of his Heritage Week project. Neil uncovers its history and re-tells some of the stories from the log book that was kept during its operational period, 1939-1945.

Need further inspiration? Take a look at the completed projects for National Heritage Week 2020 and find lots of online events, videos, and heritage walks suitable for children.