Celebrating our Heritage with Clare County Library

The message from the Heritage Council for National Heritage Week 2013, which will run from 17th to 25th August, is to ‘Discover the Past and Build the Future!’ National Heritage Week really has something for everybody and most events are child and family friendly. Over 1,700 events will take place nationwide, ranging from guided nature and archaeological walks, lectures, tours of historical buildings and historic gardens, food fairs, music, dance, story telling, historical re-enactments, wildlife excursions, whale watching and much more.

Clare County Library will play its part as it does every year in hosting heritage-themed events. For instance, members of the Clare Roots Society, Gerry Kennedy and Larry Brennan, will visit a selection of library branches to give a talk entitled ‘Starting Your Family Tree.’ Their talk will outline the basic guidelines, sources of information and the use of the Internet in research followed by a Q&A session. Branches scheduled for the talks are Scariff Public Library on Tuesday 20th August, De Valera Public Library, Ennis on Wednesday 21st August and Ennistymon Public Library on Thursday 22nd August. All talks will commence at 2.30pm. Eddie Connors of Imeco Farm in Clarecastle will also give a talk in the De Valera Public Library on Renewable Energy on Friday 23rd August at 12 noon. He will cover topics such as building your own wind turbine and rainwater harvesting. He will also discuss the pros and cons of other renewables such as hydro, solar pv, solar thermal, biofuels and electric vehicles.

On Tuesday 20th August at 7.30 pm Conjella Maguire, Heritage Officer in Clare County Council, with the support of Olive Carey and Duchas na Sionna, will present an illustrated talk entitled 'Green Infrastructures, Plan for Shannon’ in Sean Lemass Public Library, Shannon. For those of you with an interest in music the library in Shannon is the place to be on Saturday, 24th August at 11.30am when The Jaskane Café Trio, made up of Etain McCooey, Karen Kelly and Jason Noone, will showcase a unique blend of oboe, violin and guitar, while playing an eclectic mix of musical genres and evoking sounds of international café culture.

Also to celebrate the week, a range of events all centred around the theme of ‘Harvest Time’ will take place at Dr. Patrick J. Hillery Public Library, Miltown Malbay and the Resource Centre on the Ballard Road. Traditional crafts displays such as spinning, weaving, making corn dollies, cookery involving seaweed etc. will all be demonstrated on the day. Ruth Marshall will be re-launching her book Celebrating Irish Festivals and Melanie Lorien will be giving a talk on the harvest. Storytelling for children will also take place. Events will continue throughout the day from 11.00am to 4pm.

All of these events are free and all are welcome. For more information you can phone Clare County Library at 065-6821616 or visit the website at www.clarelibrary.ie. Details of all events nationwide are available at www.heritageweek.ie. National Heritage Week is part of European Heritage Days, a joint initiative of the Council of Europe and the European Union. In Ireland, Heritage Week is co-ordinated by the Heritage Council in conjunction with the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government with support from the Office of Public Works and Fáilte Ireland.