Annual Report Cottageology 2025
Chairperson Imogen Bertin
Treasurer Heather Oakes
Secretary Paul Adams
- 166 donations received from members amounting to income after expenses of €2843.
- 21,372 facebook “active” online group members in past year, compared to 16,371 in 2024. The breakdown of age, gender and location is similar to 2024 (see graphs below).
- About 7,500 “active” facebook members visit most days – similar to 2024
- About 4 posts a day on group in past year (typical reach of posts about 3,500 but a good one will get to 9,000 people). The “engagement” figures vary as facebook changes, but about 500-1200 people click, respond to or comment on an average post.
- Our Almanac of suppliers is available free of charge from the Our Irish Heritage website which is part of the National Museum and now has 189 suppliers listed.
- Seven more free Zoom talks given with 22 talks recordings now available on the website. We usually get about 60 viewing on the night and 100 watching each recording. One speaker fee was supported by the Heritage Council.
- Free email list with 2816 subscribers that sends about one email a month.
- Manned a stand at the Kingdom of Skills event at Muckross House in Kerry, supported by the IGS and Kerry County Council.
- 115 website information articles on website. Each article gets 200 views on average.
- 23 people took the “Research your own House History” course, partly funded by Heritage Council.
- 24 people attended Heritage week event in Gorey Co. Wexford, supported by the Heritage Council.
- An online “think-in” about future activities was held in September which supported collecting more names of suppliers, local meetup groups, encouraging practical skills courses and doing more local events along the lines of the Wexford Heritage Week event.
- Local groups met up in Cork, Tipperary and Sligo and plans are in place for meetings in Galway, Mayo, Leitrim, Louth, Westmeath and Wexford/Wicklow – thanks to our Local Host volunteers.
- The National Library of Ireland Web Archive now keeps a copy of the Cottageology website.
Plans for 2026
- More talks (3 spring, 3 autumn)
- More local group meetups planned. We hope to connect up the local groups with their local historians and conservation and heritage officers in the hope of using grants to get funding for expert advice.
- We hope to run more local visits like the Gorey Heritage Week event in 2026.
- Still working on a simple online form to record details of your house (with pictures) in our archive.
- Still working on providing useful equipment for members to borrow such as FLIR cameras, polycam lidar scanning to create 3D models, and the GreenTeg U-value system to measure stone wall thermal properties.
- Revising and adding to the knowledgebase articles.
- Archiving the current talks and articles for the future with the Irish Architectural Archive.
- Encourage the National Built Heritage Service to work with us on a course to provide practical skills for repairing old houses – “coarse carpentry”.
- I am out of space for Cottageology on my personal Gmail so will have to buy a Google Workspace account costing about €100 for the year.
