Annual Report 2010 Publisher full - Offaly County Council

Heritage Section
The Council's Heritage Officer works with the Offaly Heritage Forum,
made up of state agencies and NGOs, coordinating and liaising on
heritage projects. The forum meets four times a year for site
meetings and discussion with working groups meeting when
necessary. There is close contact and support both in expertise and
in finance from the Heritage Council. All work is guided by the Offaly
Heritage Plan 2007 - 2011. The Heritage budget is matched by
Heritage Council funding and the heritage section often draws down
additional funding schemes and works in partnership with other
groups.
The projects delivered with Heritage Council financial support in 2010
were a comprehensive survey of 2460+ trees in Birr to assist Birr
Town Council in their management plan; reconstruction drawings of
four 16th and 17th castle scenes for the forthcoming castles
publication; the installation of the cycle route along the old Pilgrim's
road from Ballycumber to Clonmacnoise as part of the suite of cycle
paths being developed in Offaly and a number of podcast and
Youtube interviews in partnership with a Brown University residency
in West Offaly.
A significant part of the programme, also supported by the Heritage
Council, is the co-ordination and delivery of heritage awareness
events which included
the Offaly Naturalist's Field Club programme of 19 events spanning
27 days. All day trips are free and leaders are predominantly Offaly
experts working on a voluntary basis. Heritage Week in August was
the busiest yet with a large range of very well attended events over
the 9 days. This week is now firmly established in the calendar. The
Annual Heritage Seminar was held on the 12th and 13th of
November with 110 people attending sessions. Two field trips were
held on the Saturday morning with lectures on the Friday evening
and Saturday afternoon.
The 'Wildflowers of Offaly' book was promoted during the year and
assistance was given towards the publication of 'Tullamore' A
Portrait' by Michael Byrne of the OHAS. The work scanning carved
stone in Offaly over the past two years was brought together and is
now available to the public as 3D downloads on www.offaly.ie. This
is the first time this has been done in Ireland.
The Heritage officer works with many sections in the Council, for
example, delivering the Birr Public Realm Plan with Birr Town
Council, working towards eradicating the invasive Japanese
Knotweed with the area teams and Environment, developing
supports for Tidy Towns with Community Enterprise and the Tidy
Towns Seminar with Environment, events co-ordination and scanning
of the slide collection with the library service, and supporting an
application on architectural awareness led by the Arts Office.
A considerable amount of the time in the heritage office is spent
assisting communities and individuals to plan and deliver heritage
projects. Assistance was provided to Lough Boora Parklands for the
week long children's summer school with Brandon Ballengee in July.
Page 24 | Offaly County Council Annual Report 2010