Deadline: 29-Mar-21
The Heritage Council is seeking applications for its Community Heritage Grant Scheme 2021 to support capital projects that improve access and inclusion to heritage sites; that apply good heritage practice to the management of places, collections, or objects (including buildings).
The scheme also supports the purchase of essential equipment. This scheme is intended to enable communities and heritage non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to continue their work in this area or to start new initiatives.
Types of Projects
- Access and Inclusion:
- The Heritage Council is particularly interested in applications that focus on improved access to, and therefore participation in, heritage activities by people with disabilities.
- Development of Digital Heritage Resources:
- Projects that are designed to give access to heritage and/or to help people engage with and learn about heritage, for example, interactive maps, videos, virtual exhibitions, and podcasts.
- Community-led surveys and audits that will inform future management of sites.
- Audit of places vulnerable to climate change and design measures to meet the challenge e.g. Built heritage in the inter-tidal zone, coastal landscapes, seascapes, holy wells (and their hydrogeology, if possible), coastal change processes, habitats, or landscape character areas, that may be stressed by extreme climate (the margins of ‘liable to flood’ areas, gardens with vulnerable trees or shelterbelts, bogs that might dry up, etc), towns on flood plains.
- Graveyard surveys.
- Surveys of monuments and their surroundings.
- Community-led conservation reports and plans
- Conservation report, conservation plan or conservation management plan to inform future works (a ‘Conservation Plan’ is a plan prepared in accordance with the process set out in The Burra Charter: The Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of Cultural Significance, 2013)
- A condition report on the energy performance of traditionally built buildings and scoping of improvement works.
- Heritage-led regeneration plans.
- Heritage-related actions identified by a town centre health check or public realm plan e.g., historic building surveys, heritage action plans.
- Condition reports assessing the needs of a particular object or collection, including documents.
- Interpretation plan for a heritage site that will provide policies, strategies, and detailed advice for interpreting the relevant heritage site.
- Conservation works
- Work on habitats and natural sites.
- Control of invasive species.
- Work to publicly owned buildings for essential, small-scale repairs.
- Urgent works to stabilize medieval and ruined structures in public ownership or with the written agreement of the landowner if carried out by a community group.
- Work on objects and collections.
- Purchase of specialized equipment or items that support the conservation or improve access to heritage.
Funding Information
- The Heritage Council has allocated in the region of €1,000,000 to this scheme in 2021 to undertake capital works that will apply good heritage practice in managing and improving access to sites, collections, objects, etc.
- The most applicant may ask for is 80% of the funding of the total project expenditure, up to a maximum of €15,000.
- In exceptional circumstances, the upper limit of €15,000 may be exceeded where a compelling case can be made for a higher grant and these will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
Eligibility Criteria
- The scheme is open to:
- voluntary and community groups.
- heritage-related non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
- not-for-profit heritage organisations.
- Museum Standards Programme for Ireland (MSPI) participants.
- Adopt a Monument Programme participants.
- Applications from other organisations, private companies or individuals will not be considered.
For more information, visit https://www.heritagecouncil.ie/funding/community-heritage-grant-scheme-2021