Since January 2023, Lough Erne Landscape Partnership (LELP) has been working with schools across Co. Fermanagh to study vernacular heritage and how it remains a key part of the Fermanagh landscape.

Vernacular heritage comprises houses, buildings, structures and features which were built by ‘ordinary’ people, along with their neighbours, using ideas and methods passed down within families and communities.

Vernacular heritage is crucial for local distinctiveness and gives our familiar landscapes their character. Currently, many rural vernacular buildings remain unoccupied and disused.

Students in P6 and P7 classes from Kesh PS, St. Davog’s PS Belleek, St. John the Baptist PS Belleek, Belleek Controlled PS, The Moat PS Lisnaskea, St. Ronan’s PS Lisnaskea and St. Ninnidh’s PS Lisnaskea were tasked to explore their local area and create a project focusing on one vernacular building of their choice.

Heritage Project Manager, Hazel Long, was delighted by the enthusiasm of pupils and their families as she received many high-quality projects, creating an incredible record of vernacular heritage and social history in Co. Fermanagh.

Some children chose to explore their family history and capture life in vernacular buildings by recording memories shared with them by older generations of their family.

Projects described building materials/methods, family genealogy (with many including family trees), old and recent photos of buildings and families who would dwell there.

Feeling inspired by their landscape, many pupils embraced their creative side, drawing pictures and making replica model houses from clay, polystyrene, and cardboard, using straw and hessian as thatch for the roof.

The Study of Vernacular Buildings schools project, for many schools, tied in perfectly with a school trip to the Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh, as part of their shared education.

LELP, with support from the Department for Communities, Historical Environment Division and the National Lottery Heritage Fund Northern Ireland, held intergenerational events in Kesh, Lisnaskea and Belleek between March 24 and 29.

These events offered an opportunity for students to display their fantastic projects with the public and to open dialogue with older members of the Fermanagh community, creating conversations about shared experience between older and younger generations, with many pupils bringing along family members whom they had interviewed for their project.

A LELP spokesperson thanked those who were able to present at the events, including Caroline Maguire, Senior Architect from the Historic Environment Division; Glenn Moore (Kesh); and Joe O’Loughlin and Lisa McWilliams (Lisa recently restored Keenaghan Cottage, Belleek), who spoke of living life inside vernacular buildings; and Bryan Gallagher and Bryan Og, who gave examples of storytelling and the heritage of an Irish ceili.

“In Lisnaskea we were fortunate to have displays of scythes and scythe stones from The Knocks People Enterprise; working spades from Kieran McMahon, a descendant of the founder of McMahon Spade Mill; examples of traditional home appliances and collectibles from Florence Creighton; and a history and heritage of Co. Fermanagh bookstall from the Lisnaskea Historical Society,” said the LELP spokesperson.

“A huge thank-you to all the volunteers who assisted in the assessing and marking of well over 150 projects.

“In future, LELP hope to digitalise each submitted project, to keep a record of our rich history and make them available for viewing by the wider public.”

Caroline Maguire from the Historic Environment Division said: “This was the best engagement event we have funded through our Historic Environment Fund’s Regeneration/Research Stream over the past six years.

“The brilliant work of Hazel Long and the LELP team has helped bring great family stories into the classrooms of the children who participated.

“Grannies have explained how ‘toilets’ worked, and how life was without broadband, and how local materials were used to build these hand-made homes.

“The close relationship with nature was evident in many of the projects and it has woken all to the value of talking about our ordinary buildings.

“Some of the buildings that were studied as part of this are listed buildings, and the work and projects give us an extra level of archival material for these buildings.

“It also gave these wonderful custodians of our fragile heritage an opportunity to explain the value of these buildings to a new generation,” she added.