Taking a grave view of forging links with descendants abroad

A heritage project documenting ancient graveyards may forge links with descendants abroad to encourage tourism in Ireland.

Teams of volunteers are to be trained to record details of stories associated with historic graveyards in west Cork. The rural development scheme, funded by West Cork Development Partnership, will see 15 communities map historical graveyards in their local areas.

The results, to be made available online in a digital archive, will aid research in genealogy and feed into future tourism potential, according to WCDP project spokesman David Tuohy.

“There is so much tourism potential in the whole area of genealogy. If there was an easily accessible database of graveyards that could feed into the information available for researching family ancestry which could, in turn, promote tourism in the form of families interested in learning more about heritage travelling to Ireland,” he said.

Volunteers can sign up to attend workshops, learning skills such as photography, carbon copying of inscriptions, GPS mapping, audio recording of stories, and the digital archiving of information they collect.

Stories and local folklore connected to the graveyards can be saved and documented as part of the process.

“There is a lot of interest in documenting the stories of small villages and rural areas and this project will see stories from community elders recorded and saved,” Mr Tuohy said.

This week, open meetings outlining the work of the scheme will take place in Kinsale, Clonakilty, Dunmanway, Ballydehob, Ballyvourney and Glengarriff.

* Fore more information see www.wcdp.ie/historic- graveyards