In Donegal County Council the work in relation with stakeholder engagement as part of the development of the action plan is ongoing.
As a support to the compilation and interrogation of spatial data to inform the project’s regional action plan, an online inventory for heritage and coastal experiences was launched on the 25th January 2018. The online inventory functions as a web-app and helps the county with crowd sourcing of data widening the net for information gathering facilitating public input into the project.
Joe Mahon of UTV Lesser Spotted Ulster launched the online inventory and engaged with children from local schools and members of the public in exploring the shared experiences along the coast of Donegal. The event was also attended by members of the Donegal County Council.
The launch was successful with the attendance of over 40 members, officials, school children and members of the public. Also, around 40 photographs were uploaded to the App in the week following the launch.
By using a web-app as the technical solution, the county council are able to receive input of information about coastal heritage in photographic or written form in an efficient and precise manner. This would inform the development of the Hericoast project and serve to evaluate interrogation of the public perception of cultural heritage. Action 2 of the action plan looks to collate information within a specific maritime area and the will inform this action and can be adapted to be used specifically for this purpose.
The online inventory has been successful in gathering photographic evidence around the coastline but it has not brought forward as much written evidence of intangible heritage as initially hoped. To date (June 2018) around 100 uploads have been made.
The online inventory is available through the following link - arcg.is/2qlVZZH
