Local history book wins national heritage award for Gortroe Ladies Club

A book containing a miscellaneous mix of local history articles has won an East Cork community group a prestigious national award for the conservation of heritage.

The Gortroe Ladies’ Club was one of three community associations from across the country to receive a Special Recognition Award from Heritage Keepers at a presentation event in Rathcroghan Visitor Centre in Tulsk, County Roscommon, at the weekend.

Their project — to compile a book of local history with a miscellany of articles significant to their local area — aimed to preserve local history, so that generations to come could enjoy it.

Each person involved took an area of local history to research, and the club undertook a number of field trips as part of the project, including to St Ita’s Nunnery in Limerick, the resting place of St Ita, who has many connections with Gortroe.

It resulted in a book that features pieces on the historical significance of the area’s castles, rivers, and local flora and fauna and stories on St Ita’s Church, its stained glass windows, and famine in the area. The book attracted great interest in the locality, with more than 80 people attending the launch.

Fidelma Coleman, of Gortroe Ladies’ Club, said the group felt “honoured, humbled, and ecstatic” to win the Heritage Keepers Special Recognition Award: “Our heritage runs so deep and we’ve come so far in celebrating that, from the beginning of the programme, thanks to the support of Heritage Keepers and the ladies in the group, we have an absolutely fantastic amount of local history documented and are looking forward to visiting the local school and passing on this information to the next generation.”

Heritage Keepers is a free programme for community groups and primary schools that helps participants to delve in to their built, cultural, and natural heritage, providing funding to allow them take positive local action. Applications are now open for the fifth year of the Heritage Keepers programme.