Irish Heritage School

29/04/2026

One week to go until our colleague and friend, Prof. Mary Gomes of Sonoma State University joins us in Birr to give one of her inspiring talks.
When: Wednesday, 6th May 2026 at 6pm
Where: Birr Library
Title: The Nature We Love is the Nature We Protect: From Campus Sustainability Initiatives to Rights of Nature
Who: All welcome

Theme: In order to widely regenerate deep and respectful relationships with nature after centuries of colonization, trauma, and broken connection, we need to identify ways to make kinship with the living world a lived experience for a broad array of people, especially those who have little or no access to wild places. In this presentation, Professor Mary Gomes will share insights from her work as an Ecopsychologist and Faculty Sustainability Chair about how to facilitate nature connection, and why it is one of the most important steps we can take toward sustainability.

27/04/2026

Due to unprecedented demand, we are delighted to announce that we are offering an additional date for our highly popular Forensic Anthropology 1-week course, accredited by Maynooth University.
Dates: August 23rd, 2026 – August 29th, 2026
Tuition: €1,295
Accreditation: 7.5 ECTS (3 US Credit Hours)
Location: Birr, Co. Offaly, Ireland
Instructors: Dr Denis Shine, Dr Anna Diana and Associated IHS Staff.
Includes: All meals, accommodation, tuition, instruction, equipment and field trips
Please note that the fees do not include the cost of getting to and from Birr (flights and other modes of transport)
Please let students know 🤗. Scan the QR code or visit our website (irishheritageschool.ie)

22/04/2026

Two weeks to go until our colleague and friend, Prof. Mary Gomes of Sonoma State University joins us in Birr to give one of her inspiring talks.
When: Wednesday, 6th May 2026 at 6pm
Where: Birr Library
All welcome

Title: The Nature We Love is the Nature We Protect: From Campus Sustainability Initiatives to Rights of Nature

Theme: In order to widely regenerate deep and respectful relationships with nature after centuries of colonization, trauma, and broken connection, we need to identify ways to make kinship with the living world a lived experience for a broad array of people, especially those who have little or no access to wild places. In this presentation, Professor Mary Gomes will share insights from her work as an Ecopsychologist and Faculty Sustainability Chair about how to facilitate nature connection, and why it is one of the most important steps we can take toward sustainability.

08/04/2026

Save the date!

We are delighted that our colleague and friend Prof Mary Gomes of Sonoma State University is visiting Birr whilst on Sabbatical, and is giving a free public lecture in Birr Library on Wednesday, 6th May at 6pm. Please join us.

Title: The Nature We Love is the Nature We Protect: From Campus Sustainability Initiatives to Rights of Nature

Topic: In order to widely regenerate deep and respectful relationships with nature after centuries of colonization, trauma, and broken connection, we need to identify ways to make kinship with the living world a lived experience for a broad array of people, especially those who have little or no access to wild places. In this presentation, Professor Mary Gomes will share insights from her work as an Ecopsychologist and Faculty Sustainability Chair about how to facilitate nature connection, and why it is one of the most important steps we can take toward sustainability.

12/02/2026

We are so proud to be part of a prestigious award from the SAA. We wrote a chapter in the book (edited by Elizbeth Reetz and Stephanie Sperling) 'A Practitioner’s Guide to Public Archaeology', whose 38 authors are the joint recipients of the 2026 Society for American Archaeology Outstanding Public Archaeology Initiative Award!



As a company who try very hard to help the communities we work with (and in) enjoy the tangible economic benefits of heritage, as well as the intangible value of heritage as a vehicle to build a sense of belonging and pride of place, we are beyond thrilled to gain this recognition.

Our chapter ‘The Effects of COVID-19 on Public Archaeology: A VIEW FROM IRELAND’ presented a personal account of our efforts to continue to work in the public archaeology sphere during the COVID-19 pandemic. The introduction starts as follows:

Writing these paper three years on from the height of the COVID-19 pandemic has proven confronting and cathartic in equal measure, revisiting as it does traumas left by a near unprecedented global emergency whose true impacts might not be understood for many years to come. Ireland, as both a western country and one with an extremely high vaccine uptake, dealt with the pandemic as well as might be expected. However, the virus’s consequences were still substantial and might be crudely summarised, for the purposes of this paper, as having three major impact groups:

1. Those impacted directly during COVID-19 by serious illness or death.
2. Those impacted economically through loss of employment, business closure etc.
3. Those impacted socially and emotionally by impacts of the virus and its associated public health measures (for example lockdowns).

Our experience as a small public archaeology provider, named the Irish Heritage School (henceforth IHS), firms firmly in categories two and three, with our main revenue generating activities, predominantly relating to third level heritage focused study abroad programs, forcibly closed from March 26th, 2020, until July 19th 2021. This paper outlines our story during, and immediately either side, of our ‘lockdown period’ as an example of a public archaeology response to a global health crisis.

05/02/2026

It is amazing what you can discover about your local area from the snug safety of your home. We are delighted, through funding from Roscommon County Council, to offer a FREE hybrid (online plus in person field trip) course that will take you step-by-step through the available online sources that will allow you to paint a picture of the geological, archaeological, and historical events that happened close to where you live. The course will look at examples from throughout Ireland, with focus on the geology, archaeology and history of the county of Roscommon. As such the course is aimed toward residents of Roscommon (who will be given preference for available course places) as well as enthusiasts of Roscommon’s natural and cultural heritage.

The course will be delivered through six online tutorials every Thursday over six weeks commencing Thursday 12th February 2026 (6.45pm - c. 8.30pm). We will begin by looking at the very bedrock under your feet, examining the geological processes and glacial events that shaped the landscape and formed the soils. The course then focuses on the impacts of humans on that landscape over time, from pre-history to the last century.

The first workshop will include a summary of the course content and format. Before the course starts participants will be sent a list of resources/links so that they can study their own locality. Each workshop will teach an aspect of Irish geology, archaeology and history, and go through a series of fabulous online resources, allowing participants to build a picture of their home over time. Workshop 6 will comprise a wrap-up, outlining the information obtained by the participants which can be utilised to tell the geology, archaeology, and history of their localities.

On Sunday 22nd February, we will go on a field trip to explore the landscape, archaeology of a Roscommon heritage gem (the place and exact time are TBC), but it will be in the late morning, and we will try to include a nice coffee shop at the end :)

* funded by the Heritage Council with support from Roscommon County Council (Heritage Office). As such, preference will be given to people from or with a close connection to Roscommon.

24/01/2026

Apropos our rescue excavations of human remains at Lemanaghan Monastic Complex in Offaly, on foot of Storm Éowyn (which hit this day last year of the feast day of the founder of the monastery), aside from being covered by RTE - which was great of course - our real claiom to fame is we were covered by Waterford Whisperers! We've hit the big time!

https://www.instagram.com/p/DT3akjFEyPn/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

24/01/2026

Our work undertaking a rescue excavation of human remains, uncovered when Storm Éowyn uprooted trees at Lemanaghan Monastic Complex in Offaly on 24 January 2025, was featured on RTE last night.

The significance of the date - the feat day of the founder of the monastery, is certainly not lost on the local community.

A monastery at Lemanaghan (Liath Manchán) was founded in c. the seventh century by St Manchán. Mellas Cell (OF015-004006-), to the direct east of the current graveyard/monastery, is a c. tenth to eleventh to century oratory named after St Manchan’s mother. The oratory itself stands inside a sub-oval/rectangular enclosure (OF015-004014) which measures c. 42m by 31m. The oratory and associated enclosure are part of an archaeological complex consisting of an ecclesiastical enclosure (OF015-004008-), a tower house (OF015-004001), church (OF015-004003-), several early Christian cross-slabs (OF015-004005-/032-), a rectangular building (OF015-004009-) and a togher (OF015-004011).

As stated, Storm Eowyn felled four trees on site on January 24, exposing human remains in at least three cases. These human remains were confirmed by IHS bioarchaeologist Dr Anna Maria Diana, and a rescue excavation was subsequently led by Dr Denis Shine.

Radiocarbon dates, recently returned, shed interesting insight into the significance of the burials in the story of Lemanaghan.

Remains uncovered at a monastic site in Co Offaly following Storm Éowyn last year have been carbon dated to the early Christian period.For more on this story...

06/01/2026

We are delighted to welcome our intrepid band of students from the US, Canada and Australia for our Winter Monastic Midlands Program, run in partnership with the . It's particularly brrrrrr in Birr this January!

25/12/2025

For the next twelve days (at this time) we are going to give the answers to our 'where am I?' competition.

This is the last one! - Happy Christmas to all 🧑‍🎄

Photo 12 - Cairn T at Loughcrew passage tomb complex. One of my signature 'well, I look good' selfies!