A variety of exhibitions, lectures, and other events are being planned in Westmeath libraries to coincide with National Heritage Week, which runs from August 20 to 28.
The aim of National Heritage Week is to build awareness and education about our heritage, thereby encouraging its conservation and preservation. Each year many national and hundreds of local community organisations participate by organising events throughout the country.
Athlone Library is celebrating Heritage Week with a book launch. Athlone Miscellany by Gearoid O’Brien which will be officially launched at the Aidan Heavey Public Library, Athlone on Wednesday August 24 at 7.30pm. All are welcome.
For more information contact Gearoid O’Brien at (090 ) 6442157 or email [email protected].
Mullingar Library is hosting a GAA exhibition. This will feature photos, and memorabilia of local GAA clubs, events, and personalities. Members of the public were encouraged to submit old photographs for scanning and display, so many of these pictures have never been seen in public before. The display will run during library opening hours from August 22 to September 3.
Mullingar Library will also be the venue for a lecture by genealogist Helen Kelly. She will be speaking on ‘The Irish in Argentina’ on Thursday August 25 at 7pm. On the same night Mullingar Library will launch access to the back catalogue of the Southern Cross newspaper which has been serving the Irish community in Argentina since 1875.
For more information on these Heritage Week events at Mullingar Library contact Cailin Gallagher at (044 ) 9332161 or email [email protected].
Castlepollard Library is to host an exhibition on ‘The Smyth families in Westmeath’. This is based on research undertaken by local historian Micheál Conlon on the Smyth families who since 1641 held property at Drumcree, Barbavilla, Coole, etc. Information will be available on the old Gaelic Smith Families - there were 293 families listed in Castlepollard and 30 in the Coole area in the 18th and 19th centuries. The exhibition will be launched on Monday August 22 at 11am with a talk by Micheal Conlon. All are welcome. The exhibition can be viewed during library opening hours until Friday September 23.
For more information please contact Castlepollard Library at (044 ) 9332199 or email [email protected]
Moate Library, in celebration of 2011 as the Year of Craft, will host demonstrations by local craftspeople on Thursday August 25, starting at 3pm. Maggie Dolan will show the public how to work with raw felt to make images and shapes. She will be accompanied by local woman Liz Gillivan who will revive the art of weaving on her loom in the library. Paul Coyne hails from Tullamore and is a woodturner by trade who has turned his hand in recent times to jewellery making. Finally, Hazel Greene of the Bramber Studio in Birr, creates silk wall hangings and paintings.
For more information please contact Lorna Farrell at (090 ) 6481888 or email [email protected].
Ballynacarrigy and Killucan libraries are to hold exhibitions on the Royal Canal.
For more information please contact Cecilia Connolly at (044 ) 9374260 or (044 ) 9373882 or email [email protected].
Keep up to date with what’s on in your local library by visiting www.westmeathcoco.ie/library or follow on twitter.
