The Dalriada Project is signing off with a fully ‘must do it all’ three week programme celebrating the big three identifying features of Dalriada: history, nature and water.
Dalriada is where modern Scotland began – on Dunadd Fort in Kilmartin Glen with the crowning of the early Kings of a united territory. It carries the evidence of sophisticated societies living here far earlier – in the archaeological features making this Glen the second most important cluster of such artefacts in the UK. It reverberates with the footsteps and the oars of the Gaels, the people from part of what is now Northern Ireland who settled part of Argyll. These people gave the wider Argyll it’s name – Earra Gaidheal, the boundaries of the Gael.
Today it is rich in the physical evidence of this history, in a biodiversity unparallelled in the UK and rich in its waters, in the sea life it hosts, in the seaways and waterways and the activities and sports they support.
The Discover Dalriada 2010 programme
Running overall for eighteen days, from 17th July to 1st August, the programme starts with History Week, moves to Nature Week and finishes in good Argyll style with a wet weekend – the Water Weekend.
We were starting out to give a sample handful of things you instinctively really want to do in the programme – and had to give up because we found we were simply listing every single thing. The best we can do for you is to let you at the programme yourself – and we advise a cup of coffee to enjoy the possibilities and make your choices. Note the plural – this is a programme so lavish in the opportunities it offers that you will want to go for total immersion. We do.
Discover Dalriada Events Programme 2010
Suffice it to say that if you enjoy unique experiences in powerful places on land or water, if you want to explore, if you want to be active – to do things you may never get the chance to do again, if you want to listen, if you want to look around newly – this is so for you.
Some things are free but must be booked. Events that carry fees are astonishingly affordable. Our feeling is that anyone who dives in and out of this programme will never see Argyll the same way again.
This event has the capacity to be the culmination of everything the Dalriada Project has striven to do over three years – to reinforce the knowing bond between people and place, to recover Earra Gaidheal.
The Dalriada Project
The Dalriada Project has been a major three year long initiative begun in 2007 and coming to an end in a month’s time, in August 2010.
Its driving purpose has been to draw attention to the historic territory of Dalriada, to build awareness of what it was and is and to create legacy projects which will provide an enduring foundation for the promotion and growth of the area.
To do this it has, over its three year lifetime, raised overall funding of £3.1 million. This is a breathtaking achievement in the major league- probably an unparallelled achievement in Argyll.
A Landscape Partnership Scheme, the Dalriada Project has been funded through:
- Heritage Lottery Fund
- Forestry Commission Scotland
- Scottish Natural Heritage
- Argyll and the Islands Enterprise
- Argyll and the Islands LEADER
- British Waterways Scotland
- The Waterways Trust
- Argyll and Bute Council
The Project has embraced an area extending to 296 square kilometres of Mid Argyll – including North Knapdale and Kilmartin Glen, running as far north as Carnassarie Castle, the Crinan Canal Corridor and Kilmichael Glassary.
The legacies
The Dalriada Project leaves a total of 10 projects in all, covering the natural environment, access, history, archaeology and marketing.
There have been natural heritage projects to enhance biodiversity, protect the black grouse, restore ancient woodland and create the Near to Nature Trail.
There have been cultural and built heritage projects to increase understanding of the area’s archaeology, its protected and conserved archaeological features including the Kilmichael Cross; and to collect living memories of Mid Argyll.
New footpaths have been created to enhance peoples’ enjoyment of the landscape – including a trail that will take walkers through the historical and environmental wonders of Kilmartin Glen, from Carnassarie Castle to Dunardry on the Crinan Canal.
Visitor information for the area has had a coordinated approach that includes new interpretive panels, leaflets, and innovative means of accessing information via touch-screens at key points and the use of electronic media.
The project has also helped instigate the Heart of Argyll Marketing Group, created in order to continue marketing the area beyond the life of the project.
The team behind the Dalriada Project have been endlessly inventive and resourceful as well as able and persistent. What happens to them now?
Their swan song deserves to ring far and wide – to Argyll’s great benefit.
The photograph at the top is of Carnasserie Castle, one of the northern landmarks of the territory covered by the Dalriada Project and the site for some of the events in the Discover Dalriada programme. It is by copyright hollder Tumulus and is reproduced here under the GNU Free Documentation licence.
The sectionalised map of the territory of the Dalriada Project is, with permission, taken from the Discover Dalriada 2010 programme (linked above).
I am aware of the work of the Dalriada Project and heartily commend their efforts.
Every time I drive past Dunadd and on the few occasions that I have climbed to the summit of this little eminence I am astounded at the lack of any significant indicator that this was where the Scots first settled permanently in Scotland.I know that there is an information board at the car park but a little more than that is required.
I am not suggesting anything large or commercial in such a setting but surely a very tall flagpole with a very large Saltire would not go amiss close to the roadside just to mark a very significant location.
Then again, I drove past the Bannockburn battlefield site only last week and the flagpole there was bare. Come on National Trust! Surely the Borestone site and the superb statue of The Bruce deserve a bit of support and effort.
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