Know your locality

It is amazing what you can discover about your local area from the snug safety of your home!

Wstmeath Heritage is delighted to offer a FREE* course (mostly online) that will take you step-by-step through the available online sources that will allow you to paint a picture of the geological, archaeological, and historical events that happened in Westmeath. While the course will look at examples from throughout Ireland, it will focus on the geology, archaeology and history of your county. As such the course is aimed toward local people (who will be given preference for available course places) who are enthusiasts of natural and cultural heritage.

The course will be delivered by Irish Archaeology Field School, with five online tutorials every Tuesday and Thursday over two and a half weeks commencing Thursday 13th Oct 2022. This year, the course will include a field trip to an archaeological site(s) on the weekend of the 22nd/23rd October (TBC). We will begin by looking at the very bedrock under your feet, examining the geological processes and glacial events that shaped the landscape and formed the soils. The course then focuses on the impacts of humans on that landscape over time, from pre-history to the last century.

The first workshop includes a summary of the course content and format. A list of resources/links will be sent to the participants so that they can study their own locality. Workshops 1-5 will comprise two parts. The first portion of the workshop will focus on a different aspect of geology, the landscape and archaeology, from the formation of Ireland to the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in Ireland. The second will aim to teach a set of online research skills. Workshop 5 will also outline how these skills can be used to make your own submission(!) to the ‘KnowYour5k’ initiative by the Heritage Council and National Museum of Ireland. Gathering these submissions for your county is a key outcome of the course.

* funded by the Heritage Council with support from Westmeath County Council (Heritage Office).