Kilkenny County Heritage Strategy, 2026-2030: Open for Public Consultation
Kilkenny County Council is embarking on an exciting journey to develop a new County Heritage Strategy. Heritage is a vital part of our identity and community, and it is essential to ensure its protection for future generations. This strategy will help preserve, protect, and promote the rich heritage of our county within a local, regional and national context. A discussion paper has been prepared to start the process of consultation and this is now available to view here. Submissions are available until 5pm, 28th March 2025.
Creative Funding Ireland 2025
Kilkenny County Council’s Creative Ireland Culture Team Announces Open Call for 2025 Creative and Cultural Project Funding. Applications are welcomed from creative practitioners, groups, organisations, communities, and individuals based in Kilkenny. The closing date for applications is 4pm, 21st February 2025. Further information, full details and application forms available here.
Traditional Farm Buildings 2025 Grant Scheme is Open for Applications
The 2025 Traditional Farm Buildings grant scheme is now open for applications. The Heritage Council, in partnership with the Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine, manages this scheme whose principal objective is to ensure that traditional farm buildings and other related structures that contribute to the character of the landscape and are of significant heritage value are conserved in active agricultural use. Other related structures such as walls, cobbled yard surfaces, walled orchards, dungsteads, millraces, gate pillars and gates. The closing date for receipt of applications is 5pm, 10th March 2025. More information can be found here.
Heritage Council Community Heritage Grant Scheme 2025
Take your project to the top! The Heritage Council’s Community Heritage Grant Scheme is open now for community and voluntary groups, and NGOs. The scheme funds a large range of heritage projects. The closing date for applications is March 14th. There will be an information webinar on the scheme at 12pm on Friday 7th February 2025. Registration for this webinar and more information on the scheme can be found here.
Community Event Grant Scheme 2025
The Kilkenny County Council Community Event Grant Scheme 2025 is now open for applications. This grant scheme will assist community event organisers with the development, promotion and the running of small-scale community events organised by local not-for-profit voluntary groups and organisations. The emphasis of the scheme is on providing funding for community events that encourages local engagement. The grant can range from €100 up to a maximum of €1,000. The closing date for applications is 5pm on 14th February 2025. Full details and applications forms are available here.
South Kilkenny Historical Society Programme of Events
Call for applications to the 2025 IGS Conservation Grants Programme
The Irish Georgian Society is inviting applications for its Conservation Grants Programme 2025 with submissions accepted until Wednesday 19th February 2025. A total of €45,000 will be available which will comprise €27,000 in grants from the Niall Smith Conservation Grants Fund and IGS London, €10,000 through the Homan Potterton Conservation Grant and €8,000 from the IGS Cork Chapter. Click here for more information.
Kilkenny Oral Recordings Audit
The audit of oral recordings for County Kilkenny, aims to identify collected audio material in an exciting project, overseen by Kilkenny County Council’s Heritage Office. For the purpose of the audit, individuals or groups who may be aware of oral heritage or folklore collections are being asked to make contact. From professionally catalogued archives to shoeboxes full of old cassette tapes, the audit will for the first time compile a database, reflecting what has been collected over the decades relating to the county and establish key points of information on each collection/recording. The audit is focused on spoken word recollections, as opposed to recordings of singing or music. For more information about the project, please visit our Kilkenny Oral Collections Audit Webpage
Registration for the Oral History Network Annual Meeting is Now Open
The Oral History Network of Ireland’s Annual Conference is taking place in the Absolute Hotel, Limerick on June 13th-14th. The theme of this year’s annual meeting is ‘What we say and how we say it: exploring words, silences and language in oral history’. The call for papers and registration for the event is now open for more information see the OHNI website.
Mná Feasa/Wise Women Project
Mná Feasa/Wise Women is an inter-generational story-telling project based in Kilkenny, inspired by the burning of Petronilla de Midia during the Kilkenny Witch Trials of 1324. The aim of the project was to record first-hand accounts of the experiences of women in Kilkenny. The project engaged transition years students to interview elderly women in their lives for the Mná Feasa podcast. The project was coordinated by Helena Byrne in association with Kilkenny County Council and funded under the Cultural Institutions and Commemorations Unit of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. The Mná Feasa podcast is now live, click here to learn more.
The Blackwater, Co Kilkenny – Pill Placename Associations
In 2024, historian Andrew Doherty undertook research on ‘pill’ place name associations with the River Blackwater in Kilkenny. The report produced explores the navigable waterway, the types of trade, cargo, and craft. It also delves into the existence of the word Pill. For this old word which has an association with local water bodies, and navigable tidal waterways have several connections with the Blackwater. In some cases, it is a placename, a description, and a general location. The report outlines the cultural and social history of the Blackwater River providing an insight into river life in South Kilkenny. The report is available here on the Kilkenny Heritage website.
Events at St Canice’s Cathedral
St Canice’s Cathedral have an exciting listing of upcoming events in the beautiful historic setting of the medieval cathedral, for more information see: https://www.stcanicescathedral.ie/whats-on-events
