As the summer winds down, we are excited to share some fantastic opportunities and updates with you. August is a crucial month as we gear up for Wiki Loves Monuments 2024 in Ireland. This annual event celebrates our rich heritage by encouraging everyone to photograph and share images of our treasured monuments. It is also only a month to go until we host the Celtic Knot Conference in Waterford this September. Read on to find up what else we have been up to!
Celtic Knot Keynote Speakers and Student Discount
As you know this year the Celtic Knot Conference is being hosted in Waterford, Ireland’s oldest city. This month we were very excited to announce this year’s Celtic Knot keynote speakers!
- Dr. Kevin Scannell from Saint Louis University, who specialises in developing computing resources for under-resourced languages and has worked on Irish, Scottish, and Manx Gaelics.
- Dr. Maggie Glass of TU Dortmund, an expert in minority languages revitalisation through technology and co-chair of the LITHME Working Group on Language Diversity.
- Prof. Rióna Ní Fhrighil from the University of Galway, will share her research on human rights and Irish poetry.
We are currently working on finalising the 2024 program schedule. Please keep an eye out on the conference Meta-Wiki page for updates. More information regarding the conference program and schedule will be available soon!
Registration for the conference is open for those attending in person and virtually via Eventbrite. We are also releasing tickets at a special discounted rate for students. Please find more information on Eventbrite.
Round table with Global Voices
This month we took part in a virtual roundtable discussion about media and information literacy for Irish-language speakers, as well as an overview of the Irish-language media ecosystem. Amy our Oifigeach Gaeilge, were joined by speakers from the Frisian and Basque languages, who shared their perspectives.
New Podcast with Digital Heritage Age
National Heritage Week celebrates Ireland’s cultural, built, and natural heritage and took place this month. The 2024 theme invited us to explore the ways we are connected to each other through physical or cultural connections.
We recorded a special Heritage Week 2024 podcast episode, where we explored the transformative power of digital technology in preserving Ireland’s rich cultural heritage. Join us as we chat with Gary Dempsey, co-founder of Digital Heritage Age, who shares how his innovative work is empowering communities across Ireland to protect and promote their local history through cutting-edge digital projects.
Heritage Week 2024 Open Data and Mapping
For Heritage Week 2024, our fellow Wikimedia Community member Anne-Karoline hosted a talk at Mayfair Library in Kilkenny about her experience using Open Data for mapping for mapping heritage sites and community landmarks and services.
At the event, she shared her experience of visiting and recording ogham stones, field names, mass paths, and holy wells in County Kilkenny using Open Data and open-source platforms. A methodology that can be applied to other monument types and geographic areas.
Ahead of the event Anne-Karoline (“the girl who does the mapping”), an advocate of Open Data for mapping heritage sites and community landmarks and services shared her reflections on this work. You can read her blog post about her experience of harnessing the power of local knowledge which can be turned into useful data that can be used by heritage societies and scholars alike.
Read here.
Visit the Wiki Loves Monuments Virtual Exhibtion for Inspiration!
Have you explored the very first virtual exhibition of winning photographs from the Wiki Loves Monuments photo contest? The WLM monuments photo contest is starting on September 1st so get inspired now!
For Heritage Week 2024, we launched an exhibition to celebrate the winners from previous competitions and showcases Ireland’s built heritage through open knowledge sources. The images are input from Wiki Commons so right from your computer or phone you can roam around the virtual space and get inspired ahead of Wiki Loves Monuments 2024 which will be launching once again this September.
Visit the virtual exhibition here.
Wikiolympics Edit-a-thon
This summer we had been closely following the Irish Team at the Olympics. This exciting event spurred us on to improve and expand the coverage of the Olympics on Wikipedia, specifically the coverage of female athletes and information available in Irish.
Why do we need to start writing about Women on Wikipedia?
In 2022 research found there were more Wikipedia entries about football and footballers than about women! Of the nearly 1.9 million biographies of notable individuals on English-language Wikipedia – from authors to scientists, celebrities and academics, politicians and sportspeople – a mere 19 per cent are women. This mirrors unequal representation more generally.
The main goals of this edit-a-thon were to close the gender gap in Wikipedia content and to update the Irish language Wikipedia, ensuring a more comprehensive and inclusive representation of all athletes and events.
Thank you to all who got involved and keep an eye out for our next online edit-a-thon, which you are always welcome to take part in!
If you have an idea or see a gap in the knowledge on Wikipedia, please feel free to join our meeting and pitch the idea. We can help you to put together an online edit-a-thon or to coordinate an in-person event.
Monthly Meetings
We meet once a month on Google Teams (usually on the third Tuesday of the month at 5:30 pm) when we discuss and plan our events and campaigns, just email info@wikimedia.ie to join. We will b sending out a Doodle poll ahead of our September meeting make sure to keep an eye out for it. Hope to see you there.
Thank you for being part of our Community and mission to enhance open knowledge!
Le gach-dea ghuí,
Wikimedia Community Ireland
