How Galway digitised 1,000 townlands — and put local heritage on the world map
Transform Gov - the digital government podcastShow Notes
What happens when local heritage meets digital innovation?
In this episode of Transform Gov, Maeve Kneafsey speaks with Marie Mannion, Heritage Officer, and Brídín Feeney from the GIS team at Galway County Council.
Winners of the 2025 Ireland eGovernment Open Data Award, their StoryMaps project is transforming how communities discover, preserve and share local heritage.
From digitising more than 1,000 townlands to helping local communities tell their own stories, this project demonstrates how open data, GIS technology and community engagement can deliver real public value.
The conversation explores: • Why traditional booklets were no longer enough • Using GIS and StoryMaps technology to connect people with place • Building digital skills within communities • The role of open data in preserving heritage • Creating pride of place through technology • How a local project attracted international interest
Transform Gov is brought to you in partnership with Accenture.
Find out more about the Ireland eGovernment Awards: www.digitalgovawards.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Transform Gov - the digital government podcast
Where does innovation in the public sector really come from? Rarely from technology first. In this episode Dr James O’Connell, Innovation Fellow with HSE Spark, talks to us about how frontline staff get support to spot problems, work with partners across the public sector and turn ideas into change.
Before AI can change healthcare, the record underneath it has to be right. In this episode, we speak with Helen Waters, Executive Vice President and COO of Meditech, about what Ireland needs to get right first as it moves towards a national electronic health record, and what 22 countries’ experience can teach us.
Every new policy asks people to do something differently, but training is often treated as a mere afterthough, taking place after rollout. So what if we flipped the process? What if we treated learning as an essential, so policy actually changes what happens on the ground?
Recorded live at the All-Ireland Clinical AI Congress in Belfield, this episode features Dr Amrita Kumar, Radiology and AI Clinical Lead at Medica and a consultant breast radiologist who has built hospital-wide AI implementation from scratch — first in the NHS, now in the UAE.
Ireland is about to spend €275 billion on infrastructure with a workforce that's already stretched. So what is the difference between AI as a nice-to-have productivity tool, and AI as the thing that actually closes the gap between what we need to deliver and the people we have to deliver it?