Wiki Loves Monuments 2014 winner – Ballymoon Castle, Co Carlow
THE world’s biggest photography competition, Wiki Loves Monuments, is bigger and better for its second year in Ireland, with more locations and subject added, including twenty heritage sites in Donegal.
Wiki Loves Monuments 2015 is taking place from Sunday 23rd August – Wednesday 30th September. Initiated by Wikimedia, the movement behind free encyclopaedia Wikipedia, and run in Ireland by the Wikimedia Ireland Community, the competition aims to raise awareness of Ireland’s national monuments and create a crowd-sourced bank of quality photos that will be free to use for education.
Amateur and professional photographers are invited to photograph the national monuments in their locality and upload their photos to www.wikilovesmonuments.ie. The site includes a listing of each county’s eligible national monuments. This year the list has been expanded from 503 locations to 970 and now includes historic houses and graveyards. Entries will be judged by a three-person expert panel and the winners will be announced on Sunday 1st November. The top ten Irish images will then be entered into the international competition.
The locations listed under Donegal this year are: Ray Church & Cross; Tory Island Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Site; Clonca Church, High Cross & Grave Slab; Glencolumbkille Church & Holy Well; Cashel (Glencolumbkille) Penitential Station; Grianan of Aileach; Donegal Castle; Donegal Abbey Friary; Carndonagh Cross; Doe Castle; Beltany Stone circle & standing stone; Fahan Mura-Cross Slab; Gartan Monastic Site-Chapel, Abbey, Holy Well, Crosses; Inishkeel Monastic Site-Chapel, Cross Slabs; Killydonnell Friary; Temple Cavan-Church; Cloghanmore Tomb-Court Tomb; Owenea Stone-Standing Stone; Shalwy Tomb-Court Tomb; Temple Douglas/Tulach Dubhghlaise-Church & Graveyard.
Last year the Wiki Loves Monuments competition in Ireland attracted 256 photographers who submitted a total of 2,015 images. The photographers uploaded photographs from a total of 271 different monuments and 323 of these images are currently being used in Wikipedia articles. 2014 winners of the Irish competition can be seen here. 2014 winners of the international competition can be seen here
Wiki Loves Media 2015 will be officially launched at Archaeofest in Merrion Square, Dublin on Saturday, August 29. Run by the Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland, Archaeofest is a free, public engagement archaeology event. Members of the Wikimedia Community Ireland will be there to show off entries from last year’s Wiki Loves Media competition.
Rebecca O’Neill, Wikimedia Ireland: “Anyone can take part, so we’re calling on amateur and professional photographers across Ireland to visit the national monuments in their locality, take their best shots and upload them. There are no limits to the entries photographers can make – the photographer who won 7th place shot every monument near her, uploading 201 images, whereas the photographer who won 1st place only uploaded 2 images.”
“The aim of National Heritage Week is to build awareness and education about our heritage thereby encouraging its conservation and preservation. The Wiki Loves Monuments competition does exactly that, with the added bonus of creating a freely accessible database of national monument images. We are delighted to be able to raise awareness of the benefits of open knowledge and to increase participation in its creation and preservation.”
The project is being supported by The Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, National Heritage Week, The Heritage Council of Ireland, The Office of Public Works, Open Knowledge Ireland and Dimension Data. For updates see @wikimediaIE #WLMIE and Wikimedia Ireland’s Facebook page.