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FIVE MONUMENTS AROUND Ireland are currently being ‘adopted’ by their local communities.
Following in the footsteps of a similar initiative in Scotland, the Heritage Council and Abarta Heritage launched the Adopt a Monument scheme this year.
Over 90 community groups around the country applied to the scheme and five were chosen:
One of the projects was a joint application from the communities of Dungarvan and Lismore in Co Waterford to adopt two medieval forts in their localities.
Gallows Hill in Dungarvan is located in the Cathal Brugha social housing estate, which is currently undergoing regeneration with Waterford County Council. The Adopt a Monument scheme is working with the community to help raise awareness of the site for visitors and locals.
Geophysical surveys have been carried out to discover more of the site’s story, and the community ran a Medieval Fair Day during Heritage Week in August to help to raise awareness.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Christina Knight of the Waterford County Museum said the motte and bailey at Gallows Hill had been “completely abandoned and forgotten about” for a long time.
“It has been very neglected for the last few decades”, Knight told us, noting the effects of anti-social behaviour, dumping and bonfires.
She said the museum noticed the site wasn’t mentioned in Dungarvan’s town charter when marking its 800th anniversary last year.
They decided to carry out a community survey to get local people “to take ownership of the site again”.
“When we saw [the Adopt a Monument scheme] we knew it was just a perfect fit for what we were trying to do,” Christina noted.
She said the project is about “bringing the community together” and “making people aware [the site] is there and it’s a really important site”.
People who lived less than half a mile from the site, around corner from it, had never seen it. It’s so surrounded by housing estates it has been completely missed and forgotten about.
“The passion of the local volunteers and the knowledge of the Heritage Council is a great combination,” Knight added.
The Heritage Council is helping local volunteers put together a long-term plan for the site. A geophysical survey was carried out in July, where machinery used radars to penetrate deep into the earth.
Knight said a very large defence ditch was found during this exercise, meaning the site “certainly was a really important defence site at some stage”.
She said it’s at least medieval, possibly older. The next step is trying to more accurately date it.
The large motte and bailey known as Round Hill, also once a defensive site, is situated on the banks of the River Blackwater in Lismore. Heritage Ireland said the Adopt a Monument team is providing “specialist advice in helping to conserve the monument and to provide better access for visitors”.
‘Some of the finest archaeology in Europe’
Ian Doyle, head of conservation with the Heritage Council described the Adopt a Monument programme as “a new way of bringing monuments into the heart of a community”.
“For participants it offers opportunities to work collaboratively, to undertake research and to get to know more about the history of the area.
Ireland has some of the finest archaeology in Europe and to date we have not really understood how valuable a resource this is.
Doyle said the initiative has the potential to ensure ongoing maintenance and care of the monuments, as well “greater protection through increased civic value, and much higher standards of interpretation and understanding”.
More information on the Adopt a Monument programme can be read here.
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Apollo House is a short term solution and a longer term solution is required.
Apollo House has re-ignited outrage over homelessness.
Others will fill the vacancies.
If you can afford to donate, here is the online link.
@Scarlett Milton: There would be no stunts needed if the government took its sworn duty to look after ALL the citizens of the country in a serious manner. It was FG who brought the eviction bill before the Dail and backed it up with the Courts (2016) Bill. This along with its neo-liberal love for market economics, that makes a commodity for profit out of all human need, is what caused the homeless epidemic.
Brendan Ogle, is a first rate organiser, a leader, who can bring people together in common cause. He has used his energies to do something positive to help and highlight the homeless epidemic in the country. Dame Enda, has done diddly squat, nothing, except to legislate to make the problem worse.
Government are in hiding.shame on them.
@@mdmak33: They haven’t really hidden. Their agencies have taken up the fight against Apollo Hse and the organisers.
Apollo Hse and the organisers are not on the list of approved charities, they don’t depend on government funding, the approved charities do.
@@mdmak33:was just thinking that my sled not a word from any of them . Especially independents where are u all gone
@John Scott: the politicians are certainly running scared on this one.
@Scarlett Milton: Home Sweet Home and Apollo House is primarily about generating a critical mass of awareness of and motivation to address the homeless crisis.
This is about issues and not about personalities.
I smell a rat on this. So PMVT are offering all tenants of Apollo a 6 month residential opportunity? How quick was that?! They are trying to undermine the positivity of what has happened by reducing the nightly count in Apollo to zero quickly. They are working through government funded charities to do so. We saw through it Kenny. .
@saoirse janneau: it does seem very odd that 6 month spaces should open up with such remarkable speed.
It’s stretching things to suggest that these spaces were planned and provided in a week. The truth of the matter, that these spaces were planned already, might not suit Brendan ogle’s election purposes, but everyone but the paranoid conspiracy theorists can understand it.
@John Mulligan: then thankfully Apollo House played an invaluable role as a stop gap measure to accommodate more than 35 homeless people as Storm Barbara approaches.
I take the people involved in Home Sweet Home as principled, humane, idealistic and altruistic. I include Ogle in that.
@Micheal OLainn @saoirse janneau: I think it´s very important right now to be careful not to direct our (very justified anger) towards PMVT. A charity who have applauded the newcomers Home Sweet Home and have decades of experience of fighting homelessness are not the people we need to put under the microscope. Direct your anger and your misgivings towards the governement. What´s their response?
@Micheal OLainn: It’s a very clever spin attack, meant to divide public opinion and remove the huge support the Apollo Hse has received from the public.
The government’s usual response to any display of people power.
@Dave Doyle: you are absolutely right and I found myself falling for it.
@Micheál Clesham: I truly accept your valid and justified criticism. Well said and I hold the McVerry trust and FathercMcVerry in the highest esteem. Indeed I have made donations but I feel protective of the Apollo House initiative which is beleaguered from many sides, most lately from Dublin City Council.
Interesting http://jrnl.ie/3157263f
32 have not taken up the offer yet .. that’s sad really ..
@Dave Doyle: brilliant and comprehensive comment.
what kind of trolls were out tonight?
@John Byrne: I don´t disagree with some of what you´ve said (i although i´m not sure where you´re going with the last line).
But, did the fight against homelessness not need a publicity stunt? Surely no one believes that anything about Apollo House is long term but was there any harm in throwing up a hail-mary move like this?
@Scarlett Milton: You’re a typical example of ‘you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t’. This is not about personalities, and your attitude is unhelpful and you’re simply just looking to stir this typical online drama to pass your time. Be original for gods sake and find something else to poke at!!
Give it another 3 weeks or so and nobody will give a flying f€&k until Christmas comes around again and Glen gets all festive emotional again. It’s government action that is needed not out of work crusties singin Kumbuya.
@TellingItAsItIs: thankfully you will be proven wrong. Your low class jibes discredit your feeble point. The flag has been raised.
@Michael Mark my words. You’ll be eating crusty humble pie as soon as a few of their dole days comes around.
@John Byrne: A load of bollixology from you. It’s not about Brendan Ogle or the organisers. It’s all about the government and its neo-liberal market primacy ideology that turns human need in a for profit commodity. A government that has farmed out its responsibilities to charities. Charities where the majority of the funding goes on salaries and a pittance goes where it’s intended.
Apollo Hse has shown people what can be done when people organise themselves and use the resources at their disposal, the vacant, public owned buildings, to give some respite to the most disadvantaged in society. And it terrifies the government.
The PMVT versus Apollo Hse spin we are now seeing spread across the media is phase two of the government’s response. The first being the very fast court action. This latest stunt to divide people and get the government off the hook wont work if the truth is told. What PMVT is offering the homeless is also a long time in the planning. It too offers the homeless a genuine alternative to a shop doorway, or a mat covered floorspace, that takes no account of the homeless’s problems, needs, safety or dignity. That’s the best DCC can come up with.
Public leaders are well entitled to demand how the government spends the resources. That’s democracy. The government’s sworn duty is to use the resources of the state for the benefit of ALL its citizens. The government and its love for a market driven ideology does not serve its ALL citizens. It serves only a select few.
75 Social housing units built this year, the government’s reluctance to provide council housing is why we are here, they put it on to private landlords to fill the gap through RAS and it hasn’t worked, it’s basically privatisation of Social housing, there are always going to be people who cannot afford to buy their own house and these people should be accommodated by Social housing.
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