How to Research Your Local Monument

How to Research Your Local Monument

‘Now that we are all staying safe at home, it might be an opportunity to begin a research project on your adopted monument or the monuments of your locality. The Heritage Council hopes that the tips and resources provided here can be used by people outside of the Adopt a Monument scheme as this short toolkit provides guidance on researching heritage, history and stories from the comfort of your own home. It gives some pointers on how to get started and outlines the vast amount of information that is available online to help along the way. Not all monuments are castles, cathedrals or prehistoric tombs - they can be lime kilns, cottages, handball alleys, walled gardens and other more recent and humble structures.

Researching your monuments and your local area can be exciting and rewarding. Of course you may already know quite a lot about your monuments, but there is always the opportunity to discover new information and stories about the wider local area through research and there is potentially a lot of new information you can discover online. It could include:

•Folklore and stories associated with the monument

•Old photographs, sketches and drawings

•Archaeological excavation reports and details of artefacts found in the area

•The background to the name of the monument and associated historical figures'

To illustrate this, and for top tips and resources on researching your local monument, access the PDF Toolkit by clicking the following link: https://www.heritagecouncil.ie/content/files/Adopt-a-Monument-Research-Toolkit.pdf