Former Lord Mayor and Independent Cllr Kieran McCarthy will host the upcoming award ceremony of the Discover Cork Schools’ Heritage Project 2025 in the Concert Hall in City Hall on 3 March. A total of 29 schools in Cork City took part in the 2024/25 school year, which included schools in Douglas, Ballinlough, Beaumont, Blackrock and with a reach to Glanmire, Ballincollig, and inner city schools as well. Circa 800 students participated in the process with approx 200 project books submitted on all aspects of Cork’s local history and it cultural and built heritage.
The Discover Cork Schools’ Heritage Project is in its 23rd year and is a youth platform for students to do research and write it up in a project book on any topic of Cork history. The aim of the project is to allow students to explore, investigate and debate their local heritage in a constructive, active and fun way.
Co-ordinator and founder of the project, Cllr Kieran McCarthy noted that: “Every year the project books that are produced are amazing. There is a huge appetite amongst our young people to learn about our local history and to celebrate it. For every student as well there is also family support – so whereas there are 800 students involved, one could multiple that by a factor of four or five when you take the support of immediate family members into account”.
“This year great projects were written up on Cork landmarks such as The River Lee to Shandon to streets such as MacCurtain Street to an array of oral history projects – I’ve even seen very original projects, such as this year I received a number of history trails on local neighbourhoods. The standard of model-making and short film making – to go with project books – continues to be very high and very creative”, concluded Cllr McCarthy.
The Project is funded by Cork City Council with further sponsorship offered by Learnit Lego Education, Old Cork Waterworks Experience and Cllr Kieran McCarthy. Full results for this year’s project are online on Cllr McCarthy’s heritage website, http://www.corkheritage.ie