Projects

We’re partners in a new EU Northern Periphery and Artic Project entitled DACCHE - Digital Action on Climate Change in Heritage Environments.  This project facilitates the use of local knowledge & equips communities to preserve cultural landscapes with digital solutions and methods for communication of climate stories and actionable strategies for land restoration, instilling advocacy in the face of a rapidly changing environment.   

Through DACCHE we will be exploring how citizen science can help monitor effects of climate change, how digitisation can provide some resilience and how virtual reality simulations of climate futures can motivate behavioural change to mitigate against climate change.  

The climate crisis poses an existential threat to the world and by extension to our ability to pass on heritage. It threatens the parts that make up cultural landscapes, including biodiversity, archaeological sites, historic buildings, historic artefacts, and the ways of life that give rise to intangible heritage. Consequently, heritage organisations including museums, world heritage sites, geo parks and heritage agencies are increasingly concerned with monitoring, adapting to, and mitigating against climate change.  

DACCHE brings together partners in Iceland, Faroe Islands, Sweden, Norway and Ireland to investigate how digital technologies can help address the impacts of climate change on heritage and wider society.   

Click here to discover more. 

Donegal County Museum has been undertaking research on all those from Donegal involved in World War I since 2001.  The County Donegal Book of Honour, The Great War 1914-1918 contains the names of all those from Donegal who died during World War I and was first published in 2002. Its publication was the culmination of the hard work and dedication of Paddy Harte and the original County Donegal Book of Honour Committee who oversaw the research and compilation of all the information contained within the Book. With assistance from the public and under the guidance of a new Committee the Book of Honour has been updated and the 5th edition was reprinted by the Museum in 2019.  

Based on the listings in the Book of Honour, the Museum has also created a searchable database containing all the listings. In communities throughout Ireland recognition is finally being given to the thousands of Irish people from all communities who fought and died. It is hoped that, as we move forward in peace, we will continue to have the opportunity to remember.  

Click here to view the database.

Between 2017 and 2020 the Museum was involved with the CINE project, a collaborative digital heritage project between partners from Norway, Iceland, Ireland, and Scotland and funded by the Northern and Arctic Periphery Programme (ERDF).  The partners in Ireland were Donegal County Museum and Ulster University’s School of Computing, Engineering, and Intelligent Systems. The aim of the CINE project was to transform people’s experiences of heritage through technology. Using new digital interfaces such as augmented reality, virtual world technology, and easy to use apps the project enabled communities to preserve and promote their heritage and bring the past alive. Behind the scenes the CINE project developed toolkits to help remote and sparsely populated areas preserve and present their cultural and natural heritage in innovative ways.   

In Donegal, Donegal County Museum and Ulster University worked with two communities – Killybegs and Inch Island. We delivered workshops on photogrammetry and the creation of simple 360 videos. Then using research gathered by the Killybegs History and Heritage group we developed a new website www.virtualstcatherines.net which allows people to visualise the built heritage of St Catherine’s Church and graveyard in Killybegs from a new perspective.  

During 2020, facilitator Guy Barriscale worked with the community of Inch Island, to gather stories, images and artefacts relating to the history of the island. Using the material collected we created www.inchheritage.org a virtual exhibition which showcases the history and heritage of Inch Island.  

Following this case study a Community Coproduction Best Practice manual was created entitled Meitheal    

Finally, to bring all of our work on the CINE project together in one place, the partners developed www.cinecommunities.org which provides a series of ‘getting started’, guides for a range of digital tools to assist communities in creating and presenting their heritage.   

The Workhouse was a building made to house the poor. The Workhouse is synonymous with the purported social care system that existed in Ireland prior to Independence, but its role in society has often been overlooked or misunderstood.  

The Ballyshannon Poor Law Union was created on June 5th, 1840, covering an area of 214 square miles which included districts in nearby counties Leitrim and Fermanagh. Between 1841-42, the Workhouse at Ballyshannon was constructed at a cost of £5,850 for the building and £1,100 for the fittings. The contractor was a Mr Creden. The first paupers were admitted on 1st October 1842.  It officially opened on the 6th of May 1843 to accommodate 600 inmates. It was the first Workhouse to open in County Donegal. It closed on the 1st March 1922.  

By using the plans for workhouses devised by George Wilkinson the Architect for the Poor Law Commissioners in the 19th Century and the conservation report undertaken for Ballyshannon Workhouse, Donegal County Museum and the Donegal Archives Service commissioned Virtual Teic to create a virtual reconstruction of Ballyshannon Workhouse as it would have appeared in the early 20th Century. This Virtual Workhouse captures a moment in time when the Workhouse system was still in use prior to the changes which resulted in the aftermath of the Revolutionary Period. The project was funded by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport, and Media under the Community Strand of the 2022 Decade of Centenaries programme as part of the Decade of Centenaries Initiative 2012-2023.  

VR Model Control - There is a menu at the bottom of the screen with annotations for navigating through the model, or if you get lost.  

Mouse Controls - Hold the left button to pan around, up and down. Scroll wheel to zoom in and out. Hold down scroll wheel and move mouse to move up and down and left to right.  

Donegal County Museum's and Donegal County Archives publication 'The Workhouse of County Donegal' is available online here:

Discover more about Donegal Workhouses Records   

Donegal County Archives holds almost 400,000 items relating to the eight Workhouses of County Donegal, dating from 1840 to 1923. The archive, known as the Poor Law Union Collection, consists mainly of minutes of the meetings of the Board of Guardians in each Union and Admission and Discharge Registers. There are also statistics, dietary records, correspondence, posters and notices, Registers of Deaths, a punishment book, dispensary records, a visiting committee register, photographs, and accounts. The archives can be viewed by appointment at the Donegal County Archives, 3 Rivers Centre, Lifford, Co Donegal, email archivist@donegalcoco.ie.

The archives can also be viewed online here.