Heritage matters – plus tips & tricks for planning a festival or event!

Cutting and Stacking the Turf, Western Ireland, c.1900.
Photographer unknown – photo from Cultural Heritage Ireland
(Photo: http://bit.ly/1iFrsJh)

My colleague Mary recently attended the National Heritage Week Event Organiser Training Day in preparation for National Heritage Week which takes place 23rd – 31st August, 2014. During National Heritage Week you will have a chance to have a guided tour of the Russell Library. Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity to visit this magnificent reading room, soaring to fifty feet, with its hammer-beam roof, its bibliographical frieze and its serried shelves of leather- and vellum-bound books, was designed by Augustus Welby Pugin, and completed in 1861. It is named after Charles William Russell, President of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth (1857–1880). In the meantime back to present day! I expect Mary’s account of the training day to be very beneficial to anyone organising events or festivities in their area. Enjoy.

***Posted on behalf of Mary Brien, The Library, NUI Maynooth***

This year NUI Maynooth will participate in National Heritage Week by offering guided tours of the Russell library. On April 28th I attended the National Heritage Week Event Organiser Training Day in Dublin Castle. The venue itself was quite a setting for a training day, with wonderful conference facilities and a tasty lunch on offer. We were given a brief overview of National Heritage Week’s statistics for the last few years. It has quite obviously grown in popularity with 20% of last year’s organisers being first-timers. 85% of visitors surveyed admitted gaining something from the week, whether for entertainment or educational purposes, it is becoming an important national festival. The new online registration form was demonstrated highlighting new features such as Google mapping, making your event easy to find. Each event venue will have its own url, making it easier to link your event to promotion material.

The training day offered three separate workshops; Communications, Research & Evaluation Tools, Social Media Marketing and Creative Programming. They all stressed the importance of planning and promoting your event and especially the role of social media. Local media including newspapers and radio are vital tools for getting the word out. The earlier these are approached the better and chasing up press releases with gentle reminders closer to your event date is encouraged. The more interesting you can make the event the better. A human interest, local angle or novelty theme will make your event newsworthy and get noticed. Sometimes a great picture is better than any article. Online media was singled out as the most important vehicle in reaching potential visitors. Facebook and Twitter are an absolute must for event promotion. Top tips on reaching your target audience include using tools such as the Social Media Examiner, which offers information on trending items and lets you focus on specific areas or communities. Setting up a Facebook business page for an event allows you to reach more people than a personal page. The business page offers Facebook Scheduling which automatically posts your pre-written content for you at designated times. Amplifying your page’s content by encouraging ‘likes’ or ‘retweets’ means you reach more people. Apps and sites to help measure and manage you social media accounts include the buffer app, tweet reach, Facebook edgerank and Hootsuite. Evaluating your event was also highly recommended. Try and garner statistics in relation to the economic impact it had. This will aid any applications for grants and budget concerns. Also, run a visitor survey as their feedback can only help to enhance your next event. An online survey can be easily created through surveymonkey.com.

Some examples of international festivals can be found at the links below:

Boston alcohol free New Years Eve event
International Festivals & Events Association
Prince Edward Island events
Tasmania Events

Bringing local history to life

Bringing local history to life: Teresa Brayton Heritage Group at the Immigrants’ Garden
(Photo: O. Morrin)

Have you ever wanted to know more about the local history of your area? Why not consider joining a local history or heritage group. My colleague Olive kindly agreed to explain about her involvement in a local history group called the Teresa Brayton Heritage Group. She and the members of this group have worked extensively researching the life and works of Teresa Brayton. Olive was involved in working on some publications for this heritage group. Perhaps this may encourage other budding authors to consider getting involved in a similar group in their area. Or maybe you too can find a group that satisfies your hunger for knowledge, quest for the truth or urgent need to help preserve history for future generations. Please enjoy Olive’s guest post below and maybe check out some local history groups in your area.

***Posted on behalf of Olive Morrin, Special Collections & Donations, The Library, NUI Maynooth***

I am a member of the Teresa Brayton Heritage Group which was setup in 1997. The main objectives of the Group is to raise awareness of Kilcock’s heritage and to promote the work of Teresa Brayton. Members of the Group have been involved in the publication of three books; Fugitive Warfare: 1798 in North Kildare published in 1998; Unity in Division: a history of Christianity in Kilcock and Newtown Parish 400-2000 published in 1999, In an Irish twilight: an anthology of the poetry and short stories of Teresa Brayton which was published in 2002 and reprinted in 2013. Teresa Brayton was born in 1868 and immigrated to America in 1895. She published extensively in many American newspapers and was closely associated with the 1916 Rising. She published three books of poetry called Songs of the Dawn (1913), The Flame of Ireland (1926) and Christmas Verses (1934). Her main themes were the exile’s nostalgic loss of homeland, nationalism, religion and nature. She returned to Ireland in 1932 and died in her home in Kilbrook, Co. Kildare in 1943. In 1959 a memorial headstone was unveiled by President de Valera in Cloncurry. Her most famous poem was the Old Bog Road – an exile’s nostalgic poem which was set to music by Madeline King O’Farrelly from Rochforthbridge, Co. Westmeath. The Old Bog Road has been recorded by many artists including Johnny McEvoy and is a powerful lament for a lost homeland.

This road is situated between Kilcock and Enfield and the Group have created an Immigrants’ Garden at the top of the road with plants and flowers mentioned by Teresa Brayton in her nature poetry. A large inscribed stone marks the entrance to the road and two information panels have been erected.

Please click the Teresa Brayton Heritage Group link below to enjoy a short video capturing the beauty of the Old Bog Road.

Teresa Brayton Heritage Group

Treasures to enjoy and revisit in the heart of Dublin City

I was really pleased when my colleague Elizabeth kindly agreed to do a guest post about her involvement with the Friends of the Chester Beatty Library. The library is well worth going to see with lots to delight the visitor and free admission so you can also take in a visit to Dublin Castle; that is if you can tear yourself away from the magic treasures this library holds. Lonely Planet described it as not just the best museum in Ireland, but one of the best in Europe, the Chester Beatty Library is a must-see on any Dublin visitor’s itinerary. (Chester Beatty Library Website) Please enjoy Elizabeth’s account of her experience over the years.

Bhavanidas.Emperor Awrangzib Receives Prince Mu’azzam, ca. 1707-12, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin http://bit.ly/1mjhVjg Photo: (Chester Beatty Library)

***Posted on behalf of Elizabeth Murphy, The Library, NUI Maynooth***

Following the advice of my mother to visit as many cultural institutions while a student in Dublin, I visited the Chester Beatty Library as a welcome escape from studies. At the time, it was located in its original and purpose-built premises in leafy Shrewsbury Road. I was totally bowled over by the variety, quality and multicultural nature of the material on display. Later as a Trainee Librarian there, I had seen the breadth and depth of the collections first hand. My relationship continued with the Library when I became involved in the Friends of the Chester Beatty Library, at one point serving on the Committee as Secretary. Now the Chester Beatty Library is magnificently housed in the Clock Tower building in Dublin Castle and the Friends or Members as they are now, is run by Chester Beatty Library staff. For anyone with a broad interest in the visual arts, including fabulously produced printed books from all ages, the Chester Beatty Library, is a wonderful destination and an oasis in the city. Being a member offers lots of opportunities to learn about the collections and their wider contexts, the history of the book and to meet new people. Click here for more details.

Take a journey to a different time

Please enjoy my colleague Ranju’s account of her recent experience studying Digitisation II which is a module of the MA in Historical Archives, run by the History Department at NUI Maynooth. It is also really worthwhile checking out her project at Omega.

Old TTC Rosedale bus, City of Toronto Archive (Photo: http://bit.ly/1nVjvEz)

***Posted on behalf of Ranju Upadhyay, Programmer, The Library, NUI Maynooth***

During the period of 7th Feb 2014 to 14th March 2014, I undertook Digitisation II module which is part of MA in Historical Archives, run by History Department at NUIM.
Apart from having theory classes at the Library we had field trips to National Archives, NUI Galway (Abbey Theatre Digitisation Project), PRONI Belfast. Each visit, though related to Digitisation of Historical Materials, offered something different and interesting to learn. With each place we visited, we got to learn about the different kind of software systems they are using for digital preservation, conservation and access. While Abbey Theatre digitisation project used a mix of open source and proprietary software, PRONI had chosen to do their in house development on top of CALM archival software.
As a requirement for the completion of the module we all had to complete a project and make accessible at Omeka. Mine is available at Omeka.