Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 9 May 2018
25. Deputy Martin Heydon asked the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the role her Department plays in the protection and promotion of heritage crafts here; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20056/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraTá an Teachta O’Dowd chun déileáil le ceist Uimh. 25.
What is the role of the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht in the protection and promotion of heritage crafts and will the Minister make a statement on the matter?
Heritage crafts are just one part of the rich intangible cultural heritage of our nation. These crafts and skills are transmitted from generation to generation and constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history. They contribute to our sense of identity and continuity, respect for cultural diversity and human creativity. Heritage crafts include practices from traditional building skills in thatching, stonework and boat building, to lace-making and making hurleys and musical instruments such as harps and uilleann pipes. Heritage crafts also include textile work such as spinning fleece, weaving and felting, rush and straw craft, rope making, traditional woodwork and heritage gardening.
My Department protects and promotes heritage crafts through a number of avenues. The Heritage Council, which my Department funds, provides grants for the protection and preservation of the national heritage. It is primarily a matter for the Heritage Council to decide how its funding should be allocated across the range of research, education and conservation programmes it supports annually, having regard to competing priorities for limited resources. Grant schemes are advertised by the Heritage Council on its website.
The Heritage Council's heritage in schools scheme also promotes children's engagement with heritage crafts. This scheme makes available to primary schools a current panel of 160 heritage experts, including experts in traditional crafts who visit primary schools to work directly with the pupils. The scheme currently reaches nearly 100,000 primary school pupils over the course of 2,000 school visits each year. The value of the scheme is in the richness and depth of knowledge it makes available to children and teachers, engaging children in a direct experience of their heritage, preferably outside the classroom, where possible and appropriate. Practitioners of crafts are themselves part of the living heritage.
I welcome the Minister's reply. I agree it is hugely important to retain these crafts, which have been there since time immemorial. As generations pass on, it is very important that whatever residual information there is in regard to these crafts is protected, and I welcome that.
I point out there was a ceardlann or craft centre at the Údarás na Gaeltachta centre outside Dingle. Such places are very important, particularly as sources of employment and tourism. I urge the Minister to continue her work in this area. Perhaps she might comment on the making of craft beer, which is returning on a huge scale throughout the country. It is a renewal of old skills. If we have a plan or a model, we should try to follow it. I welcome the work the Heritage Council is doing.
I am not sure that craft beer falls under the remit of heritage crafts.
According to some, it does.
I am not too familiar with it myself but I will bow to the Deputy's advice on that. I thank him for his contribution. Active practitioners of crafts throughout the country who are carrying on any type of tradition that I delineated, and who wish for it to be recognised as part of our national cultural heritage, may wish to consider submitting an expression of interest to my Department's national inventory of intangible cultural heritage, an open call for which is currently under way.
My understanding is that Deputy Heydon's wife is otherwise engaged at the moment and that is why he is not here today. We hope there will be good news over the next couple of days for them and I wish them all the best. I had some details in regard to Kildare for Deputy Heydon. Kathleen McCormick is a fantastic willow basket maker in County Kildare. She grows and harvests the willow herself and is involved in several exhibitions in Kildare, and I wanted to mention her.
