Council seeking old photos to help identify landscape change

Did you know that an old family picture taken twenty years ago may help the local council monitor the impacts of climate change?

The world around us is constantly changing.

Rising sea levels, record breaking temperatures and biodiversity loss are just a fraction of the changing climatic processes that we are now living through.

These terms are becoming more and more familiar to us as the rate of climate change continues apace.

The speed of decline can cause us to feel overwhelmed, unsure how to make a difference or how to affect change.

However, by monitoring and measuring change, we can better assess the risks posed and put plans in place for the future.

Fingal County Council’s Heritage X Climate Project is asking people across the county to get involved while out and about in their locality to help to monitor, measure and report the impacts of climate change on the heritage of the county.

Photographs and other forms of visual art record the world around us and can be a valuable tool in recording changes in the landscape – even if that is not why they were taken in the first place!

Comparing your own family snap from twenty years ago, or even an old postcard, with a photo taken today may reveal coastal erosion or cliff collapse in the intervening years.

In the same way, a river bank may have ‘moved’ because of flooding or more gradual erosion or an historic structure may be overgrown with ivy.

In conjunction with Abarta Heritage, the Fingal County Council Heritage Office is asking you  to submit old or archive images of heritage sites and relevant locations (e.g. coastlines, river banks) anywhere in Fingal along with a recent photographs of the same location that may illustrate changes over time. The older images can be photographs, postcards, old drawings or similar.

Christine Baker, Heritage Officer with Fingal County Council who has initiated this project said; “Changing climatic processes will have detrimental and differing effects on Fingal’s heritage resource. We are hoping to involve and empower communities through highlighting the impact of climate change on our cultural heritage through this photo call and training events.”

All of the submitted images will contribute to a better understanding of the effect climate change is already having on our landscape and will also be used as points of reference in the future as we continue to monitor our heritage and put plans in place to protect it.

A selection of submissions will be used to create a short film for National Heritage Week representing ‘Fingal: then and now’ which will raise awareness of the gradual changes in the world around us.

This photographic project is part of the Fingal County Council Heritage X Climate project. As part of this project, training will be provided to interested individuals and groups in how to record changes to heritage sites in the county.

To get involved, you can send a ‘then’ and ‘now’ image to sharon@abartaheritage.ie. The deadline for submissions is Friday, 06th August at 5 pm. To find out more about the project, please see: https://www.fingal.ie/fingal-heritagexclimate-2021