Mayo groups attend national meeting on community archives

COUNTY Mayo was well represented at the recent annual gathering of the Irish Community Archive Network (iCAN).

iCAN is an initiaive which supports community groups to share their local history and heritage online and a number of iCAN members from Mayo attended the national networking meeting.

iCAN is delivered by the National Museum of Ireland and the Heritage Council, working in partnership with participating local authority heritage officers.

The recent meeting took place in the historic setting of Claregalway Castle, Co Galway, where Mayo members joined other volunteers from around the country to celebrate their community heritage work and to share their ideas, knowledge and experience in developing and running community archives.

Lorna Elms is the iCAN development officer with the National Museum of Ireland. Speaking at the event, she said: "We were delighted to welcome so many members from Co. Mayo to our national gathering. These groups are playing an important role in documenting the history and heritage of their localities and contributing to the overall development of community archives across Ireland.

“This annual meeting is a wonderful opportunity for the iCAN family to come together in person to deepen their acquaintance and to learn from and inspire each other. I want to thank our Mayo members for being part of the event."

To date, iCAN has supported the creation and development of 46 online archives in counties Clare, Cork, Galway, Mayo, Tipperary and Wicklow, and is currently working with new groups in Co. Sligo. The initiative aims to support the development of up to 80 digital archives across Ireland by 2028.

Find out more at www.museum.ie and ouririshheritage.org.