The Heritage in Schools Scheme provides a panel of 175 heritage specialists to visit primary schools throughout the country. The specialist’s areas of expertise range from bats to whales, from vikings to the history of bread, from story-telling to traditional dance, and from charcoal making to military heritage, to mention a few.
The scheme supports the stated aims and objectives of the SESE curriculum and provides an additional educational tool and resource for teachers. The visit is part-funded by the school and the Heritage Council.
Our recent heritage in schools scheme visitor was Simon O’Dwyer. Simon works with Ancient Music Ireland. He came all the way from Galway. He played the longest horn in Ireland; he had a bull, goat and cow horn. He went back thousands and thousands of years ago, right back to the Bronze Age when the Spanish found Ireland. He showed us bows and arrows and he shot one at the window by mistake. He was actually pretending to kill a wild boar. He had a one string harp which was actually the bow from the bow and arrow. The bow was made from Yew wood. He made a stone whistle and it sounded like a seagull. Simon also told us the story of The Brown Bull of Cooley. Simon stayed for an hour and a half and we enjoyed every second of his visit .We really enjoyed it, it was fun. Thank you Simon for coming to tell us all about music in Ireland long long ago.
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