Unveiling Galway’s rich heritage and biodiversity through digital story telling
A whole host of experts have come together to offer an invaluable digital guide to enthusiasts as they explore Galway’s rich heritage and biodiversity.
Galway County Council’s Geographical Information System (GIS) Section and Heritage Office – with the help of others – have created a number of unique StoryMaps to help tell these remarkable stories from across the county.
They have enlisted the help of various community heritage groups, along with BirdWatch Ireland, Galway Rural Development, Geological Survey Ireland, The Heritage Council, Athenry Arts & Heritage Centre and others to do so.
Built on leading edge geospatial technology, they hope that these custom storymaps will inform and inspire people to explore the wealth of heritage that is available right on their doorstep.
These StoryMaps bring together the latest mapping technology with text, images and multimedia content to tell powerful location based stories accessible from any internet enabled device with a Web Browser including Tablets and Phones. They are therefore an ideal tool to communicate the story of our rich heritage and biodiversity in the county.
Barry Doyle and Brídín Feeney of the Council’s GIS Section described StoryMaps as ‘a simple yet powerful way to share information and enlighten, engage, and inspire people with stories that relate to locations of interest around us’
“They incorporate location and mapping into the context of a story,” they added.
In launching the project, Galway County Council Cathaoirleach Cllr Peter Keaveney said that these interactive StoryMaps ‘will help open up opportunities for all of our communities, schools and individuals to explore our heritage and biodiversity’.
“It will help them get involved in raising awareness and knowledge of built, natural, cultural heritage and our geoheritage and safeguarding it for the future,” he said.
Head of Conservation at Heritage Council Ian Doyle said that ‘this digital resource brings the richness of our heritage to new and wider audiences’.
“Ireland’s natural and cultural heritage has the ability to change a walk into an opportunity for learning and helps bring communities together. It is great to see so many agencies and organisations working together to deliver this project and we hope it will develop and grow,” he added.
Making heritage and biodiversity more accessible to everyone is one of our main goals in Galway County Council according to Heritage Officer Marie Mannion.
“Story Maps play an important role in this by offering valuable information in a user-friendly way,” she said.
Interested persons can virtually visit each of the 134 sites and explore where they are, what they look like with a beautiful set of photographs for each site, and read about their fascinating geological history. The story map provides a platform for both local and education-based studies of Galway’s Geological History and Heritage, and showboats the county for interested tourists and visitors.