National Heritage Week 2026: Celebrate and Reflect on Heritage at Risk

National Heritage Week runs from August 15 to 23, bringing over 2,000 events celebrating Ireland's built, natural and cultural heritage to every corner of the island. This year's theme invites us to reflect on what heritage is at risk, and how we can respond with care, creativity, and collective responsibility.

Across nine days, communities all over the country are answering that question in their own way, through walks, talks, workshops, markets, music and plenty of activities covering disappearing craft skills, endangered wildlife, vacant historic streets, and the stories of older generations that go unrecorded until it's too late.

There are plenty of all-ages events for nature lovers. In Bantry, Co. Cork, the Ellen Hutchins Festival runs Plant Detectives in the Peace Park on August 22, a self-guided nature trail with hand lenses and microscopes for a closer look at what's growing around you. It's part of Wild Child Day, the strand of Heritage Week dedicated to getting young people outdoors, though adults are more than welcome to take part too.

Also taking place in Bantry, on August 19, are Children’s Nature Art sessions with Sue van Coppenhagen and Shia Tremayne in the gardens or stableyard of Bantry House. The event comprises flower pounding and creative adventures with leaves and paint, and is suitable for 6 to 12 year olds, with no booking required.

Children's Nature Art.

The Connaught Street and Environs Community Group in Athlone has built a full week of events around the town's westside, an area where much of the historic building stock lies vacant. Their programme, Heritage at Risk: Protecting What Matters, runs the whole nine days and mixes poetry readings, a heritage market and family fun day, a guided walk with historian Paddy Costello, a pop-up Gaeltacht, an over-40s football tournament and a new comic play by local historian Gearóid O'Brien. Visitors will also be invited to record their memories of the street for a community oral archive.

In Wexford, you can join Kilmore Quay Conservation Group for a free drop-in Community Discovery Stand exploring the hidden natural heritage of the Ballyteige Burrow SAC buffer zone. In Galway, the Beach and Dune Biodiversity Walk in Salthill offers a fantastic opportunity to learn about the risk or threats our cultural heritage faces, and how we can all become protectors and guardians of the 160-year-old Grattan Beach.

At Castle Lake in Drumkeery, Co. Cavan on August 22, the Friends of Castle Lake Catchment host an afternoon of talks on the threatened red squirrel population and the history of the surrounding landscape, along with poetry from Fidel Hogan Walsh, before it all finishes with a fun duck race on the river, which is sure to be a hit with young families.

Speaking of which, families are particularly well catered for. The Big Dig at Glendalough on August 23 lets children loose during a hands-on archaeological excavation run by the School of Irish Archaeology, digging for artefacts on the lawn of the Visitor Centre with the iconic monastery as a backdrop. Sessions run hourly from 11am to 4pm with booking not required. Keep an eye on the number of Big Dig events taking place elsewhere too.

The Keepsake Roadshow, taking place throughout Heritage week at the Schoolhouse in Monkstown, South Dublin sees experts and guests share their favourite keepsakes, and discuss why these treasured objects are important in preserving our personal and collective history in Ireland.

In Belfast, the Northern Ireland War Memorial marks the 85th anniversary of the Blitz with Sheila the Elephant: A Wartime Tale from Belfast on August 18, a free storytelling and art workshop with author-illustrator Ellan Rankin, based on the true story of the zoo elephant which was hidden in a Belfast back garden during the war.

More storytelling is the order of the day at the Virginia Library in cavan on August 22. Hosted by Multicultural Women’s Shed – Women Without Borders in County Cavan, The Taste of Childhood: Voices Before They Fade is an intergenerational multicultural heritage event exploring traditions, food memories, oral storytelling, and cultural practices at risk of disappearing through migration, social change, and the loss of intergenerational connection.

Sheila the Elephant.

For anyone wanting to pick up a heritage skill of their own, the Hands-on Traditional Irish Crafts Day at Dún na Sí Amenity and Heritage Park in Moate, Co. Westmeath on August 15 is a fine place to start. The Irish Heritage Crafts Co-Op will demonstrate the weaving of a traditional donkey creel, the handwoven carrying basket once found on every small farm in the country, while visitors of all ages can try St. Brigid's cross making and weave a willow bird feeder to take home.

Three three exceptional craftspeople across stonemasonry, basket weaving and woodwork, will be giving live demonstrations at the Traditional Craft Celebration in Turlough Park, Castlebar, on August 16, where visitors are invited to explore the skills, stories, and materials that form the foundation of rural Irish life.

In Clare, you can join Stefan for a wonderfully informal workshop to create your very own pendant from Ogham clay. This hands on activity explores Ireland’s ancient Ogham script while shaping and designing unique clay pieces to take home.

The Hands-On Heritage Festival in Cork, run by Benchspace Cork, offers accessible craft sessions led by skilled practitioners. Classes span a variety of traditional disciplines and materials, including woodworking, fine metalwork, textiles, stonework, willow weaving, printing and leatherwork. Or, on August 19, you can join Ger Cussen in Enniscorthy for a practical workshop exploring traditional built heritage methods using low-impact, sustainable mud building techniques.

Hands-On Heritage Festival.

Back in Cavan, there is guaranteed to be a buzz around the open day at The Barn Apiary. Presented by the Bee Barn, the event includes beekeeping workshops, a reed making demonstration and oat threshing demos, as well as honey tasting, traditional Irish harp music.

Youngsters, meanwhile, can try Designing Delft at the National Museum, Collins Barracks, on August 16, where artist Mirjam Keune helps ages 5 to 13 create their own take on the famous blue-and-white ceramics.

And that's a fraction of what's happening. You can browse the full programme of 2,000 events at heritageweek.ie, and use the search filters to find what's on near you by county and interest, with new listings added right up to the start of the week.