Economic Value of Ireland's Historic Environment - The Heritage ...

Asset Type Description/ Characteristics Number
Protected Structures
Recorded Monuments– in private hands, with faintly
curtailed development rights for land owner. They are not
subject to a State responsibility for maintenance or repair.
Planning authorities administer the Record of Protected
Structures (RPS), introduced in 2000 on a county-by-county
basis, and create the RPS for their area. There is no central
record of protected structures at a national level.
Owners and occupiers are required to ensure that buildings do
not become endangered through harm, decay or damage.
c120,000
c38,475 19
Source: Ecorys analysis (2011)
In recognition of the importance of some areas to Ireland's architectural heritage, Architectural
Conservation Areas were introduced under Section 81 of the Planning and Development Act 2000.
These provide a statutory designation to enable local planning authorities to better preserve the
distinctive character of valued places, structures or townscapes.
Beyond the designated structures and sites highlighted above there is a considerable stock of buildings
and structures in Ireland which have not been formally designated but which nonetheless make a
valuable contribution to the local historic environment and typically face similar conservation and
maintenance issues to 'protected/ scheduled structures'. For example, the repair and maintenance of
these buildings requires the use of traditional building materials, and labour possessing traditional craft
skills (such as stonemasons). It is has been estimated that there are around 175,000 surviving buildings
within the Republic of Ireland that were constructed prior to 1919 20 .
There are also a considerable range of historic gardens and designed landscapes across Ireland, as
surveyed by the National Inventory for Architectural Heritage. These were designed to serve a specific
cultural need and express a particular aesthetic quality, and include urban squares, parks, demesnes,
and landscaped estates. The origin of many designed landscapes can be traced back to the early Middle
Ages, although some overlie landscapes that were created in even earlier periods.
3.2 Historic Environment Sector
The core of the historic environment sector in Ireland comprises a number of organisations whose
primary remit is the conservation, maintenance or management of the historic environment. These
organisations cut across the public, private and voluntary sectors. A further range of organisations may
be identified for which the historic environment represents an integral, if more implicit, element of their
work.
19 Latest figure reported to Department of Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht, as of 31/12/2010
20 Traditional Building Craft Skills (Ireland report), 2009, National Heritage Training Group (NHTG) – alongside
many studies focusing on Great Britain, this report uses 1919 as a milestone date for historic buildings (see
Section 3.3).
11