2006 - ongoing
Towards the end of August each year we celebrate Ireland’s natural, built and cultural heritage with an inspiring, informative and enjoyable programme of events.
Towards the end of August each year we celebrate Ireland’s natural, built and cultural heritage with an inspiring, informative and enjoyable programme of events.
Heritage Week 2025 takes place from 16th – 24th August 2025.
Each year, Heritage Week kicks off on the third weekend of August and runs until the end of the following weekend. Many national and hundreds of local community organisations participate by organising events throughout the country. Many of the events that take place during the week are free and the programme highlights the abundance of great work that is carried out in all communities in Ireland to preserve and promote our natural, built and cultural heritage.
National Heritage Week is part of European Heritage Days. These are a joint initiative of the Council of Europe and the European Union in which over forty countries participate each year. The main aim of European Heritage Days are to promote awareness of our built, natural and cultural heritage and to promote Europe’s common cultural heritage. Every year millions of Europeans visit historical monuments and sites throughout Europe on European Heritage Days. In Ireland we celebrate European Heritage Days with a full week of events throughout National Heritage Week.
The Heritage Council assumed the role of coordinator of National Heritage Week from the Department of the Environment, Heritage & Local Government in 2005. Since then the week has grown into a highly successful programme of over 2,000 events.
The aim of Heritage Week is to build awareness and education about our heritage, thereby encouraging its conservation and preservation.
We're encouraging everyone young and old to get outdoors more often and value what our natural world has to offer. Protecting our natural heritage is so important to every aspect of our lives; jobs, tourism, water, food, health and wellbeing.
Visit www.heritageweek.ie
Our podcasts this year will explore a broad overview of the multi-layered experiences which encompass Ireland’s past. These podcasts will also put into context how this sense of heritage is all part of our collective experience, and why so much of what went before, still resonates in the present.
The Farming for Nature Technical Group was convened by the Heritage Council as part of its ongoing High Nature Value (HNV) Farming Ireland work to feed into the development of Ireland’s Common Agricultural Policy Strategic Plan 2023-2027.
Climate change is already having significant impacts on Ireland's heritage, threatening natural and built environments as well as tangible and intangible cultural heritage.