The Bogs of Ireland, Past & Future exhibition

Last Saturday a wonderful Citizen Science initiative, coordinated by my great friend and colleague Niall Ó Brolchain, took place at my workplace of the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics located in the Data Science Institute at the University of Galway.

Entitled Mapathon2024, it involved volunteers from many countries using open data to map the locations and policies of the peatlands across Europe. There were team entries from Estonia, Netherlands, France, urban and rural Ireland.

To support this event, I organised an exhibition on the Bogs of Galway based on photos from Insight’s BEO project, which represents an online digital local heritage archive comprising images, videos and audios telling the story of Ireland in times past. Supported by the Galway County Council's Heritage Office and the Galway Education Centre, this material has been collected over the years in collaboration with schools and community groups. Also on display were old sods of turf from our own family bog (sold many years ago to the Irish government for conservation purposes), an enamel (metal) mug used for the much needed cup of tea during breaktime on the bog, and the Slane (Irish = Sléan), the traditional implement used in Ireland for the cutting of the peat.

Hopefully these photos and items will bring back many happy childhood memories to people of my vintage of long hot summer days working in the bog with family cousins and neighbours!

The exhibition also highlighted the new role of peatlands in the 21st century in tackling the interconnected global climate and biodiversity crises and the importance in restorating them to serve as the largest of land-based natural carbon sinks.

Most of the photos in this montage are decades old and were originally black and white before I colourised them.

 

Creating an Online Archive of Life in Local Communities in 20th century Ireland

Lawrencetown National School, co. Galway, 1946

As part of my Outreach work at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at NUI Galway in association with the Galway Education Centre and Galway County Council I am providing an online facility for schools and active retirement groups to digitally archive stories, films and photographs of life in their localities over the last one hundred years as part of their contribution to the Easter Rising commemorations.

 

Junior Infants class, Creggs National School, 1971

The BEO (Irish for ‘alive’) project is a wonderful opportunity to commemorate the struggle for Irish independence and its subsequent impact on the lives of of ordinary people. It provides a way to capture online the changing face of local communities throughout a century, that experienced phenomenal economic, social, cultural and political change, by collecting and digitizing the pictures and words of ordinary people that have been handed down through families over many decades. 

 

At Coxtown Bog, Kiltormer, co. Galway, 1940s

In spite of the massive transformations that Ireland has experienced in technologies, economics and population movements since 1916, the parish school in many parts of the country still serves as the heart of its locality and the people that reside there. It is probably the only vibrant communal institution left that can act as the gatherer of such heritage material. 

 

Donkey & Trap, McEvoy family, Roscommon, 1909

The BEO project has been in operation for a number of years at this stage and has provided a lovely way particularly for the Irish Diaspora to re-connect with history of their youth, or that of their parents or grandparents. 

Honeymooning in Killarney (Carmel Garvey), 1957

Participating schools as well as heritage and active retirement groups are encouraged to host social evening BEO local heritage events for members of the local community, where attendees bring along or enjoy viewing images and artifacts of their school and geographical area in times past that offer a unique insight into an older Ireland of communal harvesting, livestock markets, religious devotion, a belief in banshees and fairies, turf cutting, dance halls, the ‘Big House’ and the small family farm. Much of this priceless heritage material brought to the school or community hall is often kept in family photo albums stored in attics, wardrobes and drawers often forgotten about as the years pass. 

 

Harvesting, Eyreville, co. Galway 1940s

The digitised images are then placed on a shared website for the benefit of present and future generations. There will be an information session for schools interested in taking part in the BEO project at 5pm on Tuesday next February 2^nd in the Galway Education Centre.

Scanning old photos. BEO Local Community Heritage Night, Lawrencetown School 2015

The Village School - the Heartbeat of Rural Ireland

Enjoying a communal meal, GAA Community Centre, Kiltormer June 2014

Last Saturday, I attended a wonderful 50th celebration of a school in the little village of Kiltormer in east Galway. Thanks to the herculean efforts of principal Grainne Dooley, the teaching staff of Margaret, Sean and Mary and their committee, the local population united in a supreme effort to celebrate, not just the opening of the present St. Patrick's National School in 1964, but even more to celebrate the meaning of 'community'.

Traditional musicians, GAA Community Centre, Kiltormer June 2014

There was an array of exciting events to mark the occasion: a parade, a communal mass, children's outdoor fun activities, a display of vintage farm machinery, a hurling match comprising players from across the decades; young traditional Irish musicians, an in-school local history museum and an exhibition of photographs of Kiltormer in times past.

Artifacts and old photographs on display, Kiltormer school celebrations, June 2014

I played a small role in this event by helping the school host an open community night where people from all across the locality brought in old photographs reflecting life in days gone by. 
These images are still being digitised, cleaned up and posted online as part of a digital heritage archive action known as BEO (Irish for Alive) which could become the most important national heritage project since the 1937 Irish Folklore Commission. It will reinforce the connections with the Irish Diaspora.

Eyreville demesne, 1930s

Like many towns and villages across rural Ireland, Kiltormer has been devastated by a high level of emigration exacerbated about by the economic collapse in 2008 that resulted from the activities of a greedy unpatriotic troika of property speculators, bankers and politicians. But the problem goes much deeper and further back in time, to 1973 when the state joined what was then known as the European Economic Community(EEC). The key characteristic of Ireland for over 5,000 years has been agriculture. But ever since the early 1970s, there has been a huge exodus of people away from farming as the policies of successive governments favoured the big rancher, supermarkets and agri-corporations at the expense of the family farm. This is not what the population expected- we were promised a sustainable agriculture that would give a living wage to farmers and their families.
The small manufacturing industries that once dominated rural towns have all but closed down as a result of cheap imports, with their localities failing to secure replacement jobs in the new technologies sectors such as biomedical and computing. 

Kiltormer village, 1932

Ghost Villages
Ireland in the 21st century has become a land of ghost townlands and villages as young people emigrate to Australia, Canada and elsewhere  to find employment.
As we the people and our descendants are being forced to pay for the gambling debts of financial and property speculators and their cronies, austerity measures are leading to the closure  of Garda stations. post offices, pubs, marts and schools across the country. 

Kiltormer School, 1959-'60

The decline of the small rural school
Schools are the lifeblood of rural Ireland.  Without schools, communities die. More than ever before, we need to ensure that the schools stay open so that the heritage, stories and memories of a hinterland are still treasured and passed on to a new generation; and the children and their parents continue to transform the word 'community' into a living reality. 

Carrowreagh Bog

Hopefully the politicians of this land wake up soon to the destructive nature of their economic and social polices on rural Ireland. So well done to St. Patrick's National School Kiltormer for the wonderful work that they are doing to help reverse what can feel like a terminal decline. Giving people a sense of place will give them an identity,  a sense of value, of belonging and of purpose. Everyone involved is a true patriot.

Hurling match, Kiltormer Celebrations, June 2014

The BEO Project: A School Reunion- 74 years after closure!

A School Reunion- 74 years after closure!

A unique historical community gathering took place last night (Saturday January 18^th) when former pupils of Carrowbrowne National School attended a reunion in Cloonacauneen Castle. Unusual for two reasons: the school closed down in 1940 and the year celebrated will be 1938!

The event was officiated by Mayor of Galway county, Councillor Liam Carroll with local councillors Frank Fahy and Tom Costello representing Galway City Council. There was a display of memorabilia of a 1930s/1940s classroom such as desks, blackboard, books, writing implements, bell, maps, Tilley lamps and an abacus which were supplied by the communications museum located at the Insight Centre in NUI Galway.

Margaret Mulgannon (née O’Brien) of Mervue organised the reunion supported by myself. For in my capacity as Outreach Officer at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics in NUI Galway I manage BEO (Irish for 'alive') , an exciting digital archive schools-based project that represents the largest heritage programme involving schools since the 1930s Folklore Commission. 

Participating schools in BEO host informal local community nights where local residents and former pupils enjoy a chat over a cup of tea and cake with former classmates as well as bringing along photos and films that the pupils digitise, clean up and post onto a unique heritage repository website (irishbeo.com). Podcast interviews are also recorded of the older people’s memories of times long ago. 

The images and recordings collected provide a fascinating insight into an Ireland that is no longer with us- a time of small family farms, communal harvests, strong community spirit, peat fuel, market towns, town factories based on locally source raw materials, Gaelic sports, emigration, deep religious observance and the power and decline of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. 

The oldest person so far interviewed is 93 year old Maisie Sherlock, who was tracked down as a result of a 1928 photograph of Tiaquin national school. Maisie was one of the pupils in the photograph. She was born in 1921 the year before the Irish state was founded; attended Tiaquin school when it first opened on April 6^th 1926; spent most of World War Two as a nurse in London where she was officially commended for her bravery when her hospital was bombed, and witnessed the closure of the school in 1977. In fact her life is the history of modern Ireland. 

Over the last six months, circa 20 schools have organised such reunions with many more to follow over the next year. 2013 was a great opportunity to give impetus to the project as it was the Year of the Gathering providing a lot of goodwill and interest towards facilitating local heritage events involving schools. 

Already photographs from 120 Galway schools are on the BEO Photo gallery website, with thousands of images and dozens of films and podcasts on life in rural Ireland to be uploaded over the next year. The website has had nearly 600,000 hits already which will dramatically increase in the coming months.

The project’s aim is to have all schools of Galway city and county involved and to have all schools past and present identified on a shared website and associated digital map with images of the school and locality in days gone by.  At present, there are circa three hundred schools in Galway city and county, with an estimated two hundred more that have closed down over the last eighty years due to population decline, amalgamation and changes in government policy.

BEO is a partnership proje

ct involving the Insight Centre NUI Galway, Galway County Council, Galway Education Centre,  Galway Retired Teachers’ Association, the Galway Board of the GAA and Ballinasloe Active Retired Association.

At one reunion event held last summer in Castlegar National School as part of The Gathering 2013, Margaret arrived with a photograph of herself as a young girl with fellow pupils taken in front of Carrowbrowne school in 1938. No other known image existed of an establishment that closed two years later when it amalgamated into the new school in Castlegar.  By the end of the event, local people had helped identify the majority of the fifty five pupils and two teachers in the photograph. The interest generated by the image was so strong that Margaret decided to organise a reunion of former pupils and their families with the help of Brendan.

Huge Crowds show Galway Public Has An Insatiable Appetite for Science & Technology!

Pupils from Gaelscoil de hÍde demonstrating science experiments to an audience of all ages

Lt 'Owen' Uhura & 'Lukasz' Spock held captive by Borg & Klingons from the
Educate Together's 'Federation of Nasty Aliens'!

Toms, Yolanda & Kyrstian at the busy DERI stand

Pupils from Scoil Bhride Mionloch with their DERI supported 'Google Mapping' project

The two week long Galway Science & Technology Festival that ended on Sunday last was the most successful ever in its 13 year history, with a programme that endeavored to promote an awareness of science and technology amongst both young children and the school-going teenage population.

The brilliantly colourful 'Aquatic Science' exhibit from Scoil Bailemanach (Ballymana)

During the period of the Celtic Tiger and before, our youth were attracted in their droves to careers in the professions such as legal, construction and financial that were thought to be safe, lucrative, 9-5 and relatively stress free. The nation applauded and seemed to be entranced by the private jet-setting lives of property speculators, bankers and lawyers. We turned towards the easy money of building/land sales attempting as it seemed as if the whole island was being converted into one vast building site to the detriment of sustainable sectors such as product innovation, manufacturing, organic agriculture, tourism and natural energy sources.We imported cheap labour to do the menial jobs that we used to do ourselves.
Now that the boom is over and the country is economically on the rocks, we are slowly experiencing the harsh lessons of a 'reality check' and are painfully coming to undertstand that we must 'make things' again based on our own human and natural resources if we are to become a major player in the new unfolding Global Village.

Principal Máire Regan-Walsh and the pupils from Bawnmore National School
displaying their Computer Animation project work

St. Augustine's School Clontuskert launch Robotic Ireland's programmable Lego

As well as introducing these pupils to adult science experts, providing them with valuable Role Models and mentors from amongst the third level student science community, the Festival also gave them a rare prestigious public platform to show off and demonstrate their own prowess in Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Engineering, Technologies & the Web. One that they took too with relish!

One of my tasks was to encourage and coordinate schools in taking stands at the exhibition. The response was terrific. Based on the exhibit space available, I secured 15 schools and had to turn many more away.

Scoil Náisiúnta Baile Chláir na Gaillimhe explaining the engineering concepts of the ancient catapult

A lot of the credit most go to great efforts of so many individual teachers who time and time again go over and above the call of duty in their efforts to help their pupils.

It seems like all the pupils of Coolarne turned up at the exhibition to demonstrate their scientific experiments based on Sound

Scoil Chiaraín Naofa Doorus teacher & pupils are rightly proud of their Lungs & Heart projects

Highlights of the festival included a lecture by Craig Barrett, (former Intel chairman) on Education for Innovation where he told the audience that it was up to the Irish themselves to pull the country out of recession; visits to schools by an array of attractive interactive science shows (Cosmic Explorers, Armagh Planetarium, Mad Science, Big Bug Show, K’nex Roadshow, True Physics Rocket Workshops, Weather Show, Science Magic, Magic Mathworks, Galileo’s Greatest Mistake…), a national conference of applied mathematics in NUIG, guided tours of the university’s science labs/institutes and its 3 science museums (geology, zoology & computing), science talks (e.g. anatomy, energy) science workshops, quizzes, debates…

Happy Smiling Volunteers at the DERI Stand

Within the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) at NUI Galway, we hosted school visits, re-opened an exciting revamped Gary McMahon(R) from Galway City Council enjoying the vintage Apple Computer display in the Communications & Computing Museum that was transferred from DERI to the Áras na Mac Leinn for Sunday's Exhibition

Communications/Computing Museum (with eGalway) and started a weekly Computer Labs (computer programming/maintenance) initiative in a local post-primary school (St. Mary’s College).

Pupils from Fohenagh experiencing a 1960s classroom at the DERI BEO exhibit in Communications & Computing Museum

General Manager SAP and Bernard Kirk Galway Education Centre holding the ultimate Yuppie accessory from the 1980s - the 'brick' cell phone in the Communications & Computing Museum

This was due to the wonderful involvement of young researchers from the Institute such as Laura, Pierre, Lukasz, Jacik, James, Geariod and of course experts such as Alan Fitzpatrick who volunteered their time and effort for the greater good.

Toys 4 Boys!

Fathers & boys enjoy classic 1970s computer games in the Communications & Computing Museum

Distinguished Guests- Paul Nugent (St. Dominic's High School, Dublin) & Eoin Gill (Calmast Waterford Institute of Technology) were delighted with the different exhibits at the Communications & Computing Museum

Communications & Computing Museum Supervisors - DERI's Owen & Lukasz

30,000 Visitors to one-Day Science & Technology Festival at Galway University

Long queues were a feature of Sunday's Science & Technology Exhibition

The Exhibition, the festival finale, was held for the first time in Galway University (NUI Galway) and was officially opened by Maire Geoghegan Quinn EU Commissioner for Science, Research & Innovation, supported by Dr. James Browne NUIG President, Gerry Kilcommins (General Manager Medtronic), Noel Treacy TD and Tom Hyland (Chair & former IDA West Chairman).

With a visionary unity of purpose that united businesses, third level colleges, schools, government agencies and the public, the number of visitors exceeded all our expectations. Average attendances in previous years was in 10,000-16,000 category. This year the media estimated that 50,000 turned up to NUIG for the event (though I believe it was closer to 30,000). The queues started at 12.00 and were still there at the closing time of 5.30pm!

Thank God for Children’s Power as the young ‘uns dragged their parents along!
It was the biggest gathering of people that ever appeared in our university.

Demonstrating the Programming of Robotic Lego

Of course, it must be admitted that we the organisers must do better next year to handle such huge numbers and do our upmost to reduce the waiting time for entry to the exhibition centre. But we were caught unawares and will be better prepared next year by possibly securing a second large adjacent building on campus.

A fantastic achievement and a welcome sign that young Irish people have a serious and growing interest in experiencing the challenges of the sciences, the technologies and innovation. Long may it be nurtured.

KNEX kits at the Athenry Boys' School stand

Something Fishy project at the St. Joseph's School Oranmore stand

Brother Niall Coll, a veteran of school science exhibitions with pupils from St. Patrick's National School Galway City promoting their Invasive Species project

Star fleet officers, Borg & Klingons from Educate Together School Galway City with their excellent project on how the 1960s science fiction Star Trek television series inspired many of today's technologies such as the iPad and the mobile phone

Fohenagh National School gave visitors an insight into how modern computing technologies can bring local history alive by the use of Digital Archiving