Groups that will benefit

Our project will deliver a program of heritage based training and research around the natural, cultural and social heritage of the Upper Springfield area. This will afford people in the community a chance to capture their own story and make their voice heard while connecting them with their heritage and place. We will also be partnering with four local groups who have been gathering local heritage assets pertaining to their own organisations on an ad-hoc and group hobby basis in recent years. These groups have approached us in the past year and asked for help and support in professionalising, preserving and showcasing their collections in order that they can be successfully curated and made accessible to the wider community. They have agreed to partner with us during our recent community consultation events held in Gaelionad Mhic Goill. They have each identified a core group of local volunteers who are willing to be trained in oral history methodologies, heritage excavation and digital archiving to work with us for the duration of the project.

They are:

  • Local Irish medium school Bunscoil an tSléibhe Dhuibh who are celebrating their 25th anniversary this year are already gathering their treasure trove of memorabilia and ephemera together
  • Black Mountain Environmental Group who built a relationship with us during our young roots project and wish to further preserve their history of environmental activism
  • Gort na Móna CLG who are celebrating 45 years in existence in 2019 and have a local historical society made up for club volunteers who are already working in pulling a comprehensive history of the club together.
  • Upper Springfield Development Trust who in 1997, received and oversaw West Belfast’s largest ever 6.5 million EU funded youth project, the Urban Initiative which employed 120 young people in the area in a range of community projects. They have gathered a significant collection of untapped material on the 20th anniversary of the project and have expressed support their their current youth project, the Upper Springfield youth team in providing a volunteer group to work with us on curating this collection