View the full press release http://www.blueflagireland.org/news-events/international-blue-flag-and-national-green-coast-awards-announced-for-ireland-in-2013.1462.html 

The Graduate Diploma and Graduate Certificate in World Heritage Conservation are part-time, online, distance learning courses designed to equip you with current thinking and professional understanding of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. It will provide you with the knowledge base, skills and confidence to address World Heritage issues and to advance your career in this field.

The International Council of Museums (ICOM) established International Museum Day in 1977 to increase public awareness of the role of museums in the development of society. Momentum has been rising unabated ever since. In 2012, International Museum Day garnered record-breaking participation with almost 32,000 museums hosting events in more than 129 countries. The worldwide community of museums will celebrate the next International Museum Day on 18 May, 2013.

The theme: Museums (memory + creativity) = social changeThe museum community decided to celebrate IMD 2013 around the theme Museums (Memory + Creativity) = Social Change.

Our rich heritage, which museums both display and protect, is associated with inventiveness and vitality, both of which have characterized the museum sector in recent years and are museums’ greatest strengths.

ICOM General Director, Julien Anfruns adds: “Reconciling their traditional mission of preservation with cultivation of the creativity necessary for renewal and visitor growth is the evolution that museums are striving for, with the firm conviction that their presence and their actions can change society in a constructive manner.”

This truly optimistic theme in the form of an equation dynamically gathers several concepts that are essential to defining what a museum is today, highlighting the universal nature of those institutions and their positive influence on society. It summarises the complexity of museum tasks and recalls that they are meant to contribute to community development and gathering together.

Practical information

For more information on International Museum Day, please visit the event’s website: http://imd.icom.museum 

Here you can find an ever-growing list of the activities being organised around the world by participating museums.

IMD is also on Facebook! Please join us on this trilingual page and share your ideas and photos.

Dowload the full Press Release here Pdf

For more information clink on  www.bbgreenway.com

What was in the news 100 years ago? The Century Ireland project is an online historical newspaper that tells the story of the events of Irish life a century ago. It's published on a fortnightly basis, beginning in May 2013, and is the main online portal for the Irish decade of commemorations, 1912-23.

Undertaken in the years 1656-1658 by the Cromwellian regime, the Down Survey of Ireland is the first ever detailed land survey on a national scale anywhere in the world! The survey sought to measure all the land to be forfeited by the Catholic Irish in order to facilitate its redistribution to Merchant Adventurers and English soldiers. Copies of these maps have survived in dozens of libraries and archives throughout Ireland and Britain, as well as in the National Library of France. 

A new Heritage Plan for County Monaghan by Monaghan County Council was launched recently by Conor Newman, Heritage Council Chairman and Monaghan Mayor Cllr. Hugh McElvaney. 

Download your copy from:

Ogham stones are among Ireland's most remarkable national treasures. These perpendicular cut stones bear inscriptions in the uniquely Irish Ogham alphabet, using a system of notches and horizontal or diagonal lines/scores to represent the sounds of an early form of the Irish language. The stones are inscribed with the names of prominent people and sometimes tribal affiliation or geographical areas. These inscriptions constitute the earliest recorded form of Irish and, as our earliest written records dating back at least as far as the 5th century AD! 

How to engage your visitors through play? How to use games and play in your museum to create a meaningful visitor experience.

For further details see http://www.arts.ulster.ac.uk/mcgplay/