A week of exploring Westmeath heritage

Exploring Our Foundations is the theme of the 2025 National Heritage Week and this year Westmeath pulls out all the stops with more than 60 events.

This annual celebration encourages participants to delve into the building blocks of the heritage that shaped us; from landscapes to cultural activities.

National Heritage Week 2025 fêtes all things heritage. It brings together communities, families, organisations, cultural institutions, academics and enthusiasts, to build awareness about the value of heritage and support its conservation.

It kicks off next Saturday, August 16, and continues to Sunday August 24 acknowledging the cultural, built and natural heritage of the county. An initiative of the Heritage Council, it’s about sharing the experience, knowledge, culture and practices through free events.

“It’s great to see so much enthusiasm about the programme,” Westmeath heritage officer Melanie McQuade told the Westmeath Examiner. “I checked on the website this morning, there are 62 events registered at the moment for Westmeath, which is fantastic.”

The week of free gatherings highlights many features of the county: “It’s bringing heritage to people who might not be involved with it on a daily basis. It also gives people who live it day to day a chance to showcase their local heritage or heritage projects. It’s really a celebratory week,” Ms McQuade said.

The 2025 topic provides plenty of scope: “The theme this year is a good one. Exploring our foundations may evoke thoughts of built heritage or archaeology, but it’s bigger than that.

“It goes down to natural heritage as well, our cultural foundations. It’s broad, and that comes across in the events scheduled. It hits on so many aspects of our heritage.”

Although the Heritage Council guides the week, its success is largely down to the people contributing their unpaid time: “There’s a lot of voluntary enthusiasm that comes across. It’s people’s pride in their own areas and their enthusiasm for it, wanting to share that with others, which is great to see.”

Heritage Week brings people to places they couldn’t necessarily access at other times of the year. The chance to peek behind the curtain often piques the interest: “For example in Athlone on the town wall, local historian Gearóid O’Brien and I are leading a tour,” Melanie says. “It goes through private property, areas people don’t normally see during the year.

“It’s great that people have given us permission to lead the walk. That’s not something that can be done all year round. Similarly, there’s a crafts demonstration at An Seanbhóthar Farm in Lynn. That’s a private farmyard opened up for people to see crafts like blacksmithing, basket-making, green woodworking and leather working, which is brilliant.”

The range of congregations that will take place between August 16 and 24 is as impressive as the number: “Another one, in the townland of Killare, is about traditional farm buildings. We’ll have tips on how to maintain and restore farm buildings and the wildlife inhabiting them.

This is another opportunity to see private property that wouldn’t normally be accessible in a communal celebration of our heritage.”

Many community groups will host presentations, like Emper: “They have an event celebrating that area. The group received a grant from the Heritage Council for conservation of the Tuite Mausoleum in the churchyard in Churchtown.

“They’re bringing in the whole community for an evening with a talk on the Tuite family, then there’ll be traditional music and poetry recitations.

“Another is the Warriors’ Grave event in Castletown Geoghegan. Though on private lands, the community there have worked with a geophysics archaeologist to explore the monument and to learn a bit more about it.”

A historic talk by Fr Tommy O’Connor will take place at Fore Abbey Coffee Shop on Thursday August 21. Fr O’Connor, a native of Ballinabrackey, Meath, holds a doctorate from the Sorbonne and is emeritus professor of European History in Maynooth University. His research interests include the Irish and English European diasporas of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Westmeath County Council play a role in coordinating the experiences: “Christina Sweeney, the biodiversity officer, and I will link in where we can and help people out with the organising, but really it’s down to the local groups taking on projects and taking on to organise events. We have to really thank everyone who put in the effort.”

With 60-plus options on the National Heritage Week website, selecting highlights is almost impossible: “The Westmeath Archaeological Historical Society has a guided tour of Famine Village at Ballagh near Rosemount. That promises to be a really good afternoon. That’s a place that might not be on people’s radar. Seamus O’Brien, who’s very knowledgeable about that, will lead the group and tell them about the history of the village.

“Belvedere House Gardens and Park will hold a guided tours, one at either end of the week. These look at the landscape and on the architecture of the house.

“Uisneach has a special event focusing on children. They’re going to have the Big Dig, which is like a mock excavation. They also have a film screening, a really exciting film about the goddess Ériu. And that event, as well as many others, require booking,” Melanie warned.

• Check the full listings on www.heritageweek.ie or pick up a printed guide from council offices or libraries.