National Heritage Week runs from the 15th to 23rd of August and this year's theme is Heritage at Risk. It's a phrase that could mean a lot of things, from crumbling buildings to disappearing languages to changing coastlines. But the heritage I think about most is quieter than any of that. It's the stories we stopped telling. The names we stopped using. The natural world we stopped noticing.
Children who grow up knowing the name of the tree at the end of the field, the story behind the lone hawthorn in the middle of the meadow or what it means when a robin lands close, these children carry something forward. They become the people who protect things, not because they were told to but because they feel a connection to what's there.
You don't need a heritage site or a museum visit to mark Heritage Week with children.
Here are seven things you can do this week, most of them outdoors, all of them free.
1. Find a fairy tree
Lone hawthorn trees standing in the middle of Irish fields are one of the most visible traces of our folklore heritage. For centuries they were known as fairy trees, the gathering places for the Sídhe, and cutting one down was considered very bad luck. Many of these trees still stand today, in the middle of fields and development, because of that belief.
Take children for a walk and look for one. A lone tree in an open field, often gnarled and old, usually with no obvious practical reason for being there. When you find one, tell them why it's standing. Ask them what they think lives underneath it. The conversation that follows is heritage in action.
Heritage at Risk: Lone hawthorn trees are increasingly under threat from development, intensive farming and land consolidation. Many have been lost in the last 30 years.
2. Learn one Irish word for something in nature
Coill meaning forest.
Loch meaning lake.
Sliabh meaning mountain.
Crann meaning tree.
Féar meaning grass.
The Irish language gave a name to every feature of this landscape long before English arrived. Each word carries a way of seeing. The Irish word for a mountain is also the word for a shoulder, which tells you something about how this land was understood by the people who named it.
Pick one word this week. Use it on your walk. Point to the tree and say crann. Find the lake on a map and call it a loch. Children who learn even one Irish nature word carry a small piece of the language forward.
Heritage at Risk: Irish is one of the most endangered languages in Europe. The connection between the language and the natural world it named is disappearing with it.
3. Tell a story about something you see on a walk
Every Irish family used to know these stories. Many don't any more.
The robin has a red breast because it tried to fan the flames at the crucifixion and was marked by the fire. The magpie is counted in rhyme (one for sorrow, two for joy) an old Irish tradition that predates the English version. The ladybird is a luckbringer in Irish folklore. The hawthorn flowers in May because it waits until Bealtaine to bloom.
You don't need to know all of them. One is enough. Pick the bird or the tree or the insect your child is most interested in and find its Irish story. Then tell it on the next walk. That's how oral tradition worked. One person, one story, one child at a time.
Heritage at Risk: Irish nature folklore is an oral tradition that has been declining for generations. Stories that were known in every townland 100 years ago are now found only in academic archives.
4. Go foraging for something seasonal
Blackberries are coming into season right now in Irish hedgerows. Elderberries are close behind, their heavy clusters turning deep purple in August. On upland ground, bilberries or fraughans in Irish, are ready in the weeks around Lughnasa.
Take a container and go looking. Show children how to check if a blackberry is ripe, deeply purple-black, coming away from the plant with no resistance. Taste one together. Bring them home and make something like a crumble, a jam, a simple bowl with cream.
Foraging connects children to the oldest food tradition in Ireland. The knowledge of what grows, where and when is heritage as much as any building or language.
Heritage at Risk: Traditional foraging knowledge is disappearing as fewer people spend time in the Irish countryside. Many edible plants that were once commonly known are now unrecognised by most people.
5. Make a nature journal
Take a notebook and a pencil on a walk and write or draw everything you notice. A feather. The colour of the lichen on a stone wall. The shape of the clouds over the hill. A beetle on a leaf. The smell of the hedgerow after rain.
Children who keep nature journals develop something that used to be called natural history, a careful, patient attention to what is actually there. It's a skill that's becoming rare. The naturalists and botanists who documented Ireland's wild plants and animals in the 18th and 19th centuries did exactly this, walking the same ground with exactly this kind of attention.
A nature journal from this week becomes a piece of personal heritage. In ten years, your child will be able to read what they noticed in a Co. Louth hedgerow in August 2026.
Heritage at Risk: Ireland's biodiversity is in significant decline. Children who learn to notice and name the natural world around them are more likely to care about protecting it.
6. Visit a local heritage site this week
National Heritage Week has a programme of events across Ireland this week, many of them free and many of them outdoors. Ring forts, holy wells, standing stones, old walled gardens and local natural history walks, there is almost certainly something happening near you.
Even without a formal event, this is the week to visit the site you've driven past a hundred times and never stopped at. A ringfort. A holy well. A stretch of bog. A local river with its Irish name on the map.
Go with children and let them ask questions you might not be able to answer. That's fine. The questions are the point.
The Heritage Ireland website and the National Heritage Week website both list local events by county. Search 'Heritage Week events' and your county name to find something nearby.
Heritage at Risk: Many of Ireland's smaller heritage sites particularly ringforts, holy wells and vernacular buildings, are poorly protected and at risk from neglect, vandalism and development.
7. Grow something connected to Ireland's natural heritage
Ireland has native wildflowers, trees and plants that have grown here for thousands of years and are increasingly rare. The hawthorn. The rowan. The blackthorn. Meadow wildflowers that once grew in every field and are now found only on road verges and nature reserves.
This week, sow a native wildflower seed mix in a pot or a patch of bare ground. Or plant a native hedge plant such as hawthorn, blackthorn, elder, rowan. Something that feeds birds, shelters insects and has a place in Irish folklore as well as Irish ecology.
Children who grow something native are doing something real for heritage. Every rowan tree planted is a small act of restoration. Every wildflower that blooms is food for a pollinator that might not otherwise find it.
Heritage at Risk: Traditional Irish garden varieties and native plant species are under significant pressure from imported cultivars, intensive land use and loss of hedgerow habitat.
Why this matters: Heritage at Risk is not just about buildings
The theme of Heritage Week 2026 is Heritage at Risk. It's easy to picture crumbling castles or threatened coastlines when you hear that phrase. But the heritage I worry most about losing is less visible than any building.
It's the name of the bird your grandmother knew. The story about the field your great uncle refused to drain. The knowledge of which berries were safe to eat and which month to pick them. The Irish word for the fog that sits in the valley on winter mornings.
This kind of heritage doesn't leave ruins when it disappears. It just stops being passed on. Quietly, without anyone deciding it should.
Children who spend time in the natural world. Those who learn its names and stories and rhythms become the people who carry it forward. That's what Heritage Week is really about. Not preservation in a museum. Continuation in a life.
Free Irish folklore stories for the turning year
Four Stories for the Turning Year is a free collection of Irish nature myths for families — one story for each season. The same folklore tradition that Heritage Week is trying to protect, brought into your home. Download it free below.
Keep the connection going every month
The Little Sprouts Garden Box was built to do exactly what Heritage Week asks of us, keep Irish nature and folklore alive in the hands of the next generation. Every month an Irish folklore story, seeds to grow, a seasonal craft and a recipe, all following the Celtic calendar. No garden needed. Ships across Ireland and Europe.
Frequently asked questions
When is National Heritage Week 2026?
National Heritage Week 2026 runs from 16th to 23rd August. Events take place across Ireland throughout the week, many of them free and family friendly. The theme this year is Heritage at Risk.
What is the theme of Heritage Week 2026?
The theme of National Heritage Week 2026 is Heritage at Risk, drawing attention to the aspects of Ireland's natural, cultural and built heritage that are under threat from development, climate change, neglect or simply the gradual fading of living traditions.
What is natural heritage in Ireland?
Ireland's natural heritage includes its native wildlife, plants, habitats, landscapes and the cultural traditions connected to the natural world including Irish folklore, the Irish language names for natural features, foraging traditions, and the stories and beliefs associated with trees, birds and seasonal changes. Much of this living heritage is at risk as fewer people spend time in the Irish countryside and as older generations who carried oral traditions pass on.
How can children get involved in Heritage Week?
Children can get involved in Heritage Week by visiting a local heritage site, going for a nature walk and keeping a journal, learning an Irish word for something in the natural world, going foraging for seasonal wild food, or simply hearing a piece of Irish folklore connected to what they see outside. The Heritage Ireland and National Heritage Week websites list family events by county across the week.
What Irish folklore is connected to the natural world?
Irish folklore is deeply rooted in the natural world. The lone hawthorn tree in the middle of a field is a fairy tree, and many still stand because of the old belief that cutting one brings bad luck. The robin's red breast comes from its attempt to remove a thorn from the crucifixion. The magpie is counted in a rhyme that predates the English version. Every season has its festivals (Imbolc, Bealtaine, Lughnasa and Samhain) rooted in the agricultural and natural rhythms of the Irish year. This folklore connects children to the landscape in a way that no guidebook can replicate.
