A chance to get involved in Kilkenny field names project

A training and support workshop to encourage wider participation in the Kilkenny Field Names Recording Project will be held at the Old Schoolhouse in Dunnamaggin on Monday, October 22 at 8pm.

Since 2010, the Project, an initiative of the Kilkenny County Council Heritage Office, has been working closely with communities around the county in the recording and mapping of the county’s old field names before they are irretrievably lost.

To date, over 8,750 field names have been recorded by more than 100 survey volunteers in 275 townlands throughout the county.

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All the field names collected are being digitally archived using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and made available online as a permanent record for future generations both at home and abroad.

As well as the workshop on the night, a short film produced by the project, ‘Naming Ground’, will also be shown.
Communities and individuals from Dunnamaggin and surrounding areas who have an interest in surveying the field names of the townlands in their local parish are encouraged to attend.

Participants will receive guidance in the field name survey process. There will be a warm welcome for all.

Beginnings

The field names project began almost seven years ago. It started with a field name survey of just one parish and one surveyor.

From there, the project gained traction and has since supervised and archived the survey work of over 100 survey volunteers.
The field names are part of our cultural heritage and are a link to a rural Ireland that is fast disappearing. Recognising that these field names would soon be lost forever, the Heritage Office of Kilkenny County Council decided to commission a county wide project to record and map them.

The public can now go online and view each field recorded by the project, and find out about it. See www.kilkennyheritage.ie.