National Heritage Week 2026 – Heritage at Risk: The Living Heritage of Ballyvolane House

Justin was delighted to join Sinéad Ryan on Newstalk’s The Home Show as part of her series of interviews with historic house owners.

They spoke about the joys and challenges of running a historic house, the work of Historic Houses of Ireland, and the efforts being made by custodians to protect Ireland’s privately owned built heritage for future generations.

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Delighted to represent Historic Houses of Ireland at the European Historic Houses AGM in Brussels on 2nd and 3rd June.

A highlight was visiting the European Parliament and attending the opening of “Heritage at Heart: Historic Houses and Gardens as the Cultural Foundations of Europe”, hosted by MEP Carlo Ciccioli.

It was a pleasure to meet Irish MEP Cynthia Ní Mhurchú and MEP Carlo Ciccioli, and to discuss the vital role historic houses play in rural Europe — supporting tourism, local employment, traditional skills, community life and sustainable rural regeneration.

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On Wild Salmon Day, we are raising the flag for a species that once shaped life and livelihoods along the River Blackwater.

In the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, spring, summer and autumn at Ballyvolane were defined by salmon anglers travelling here to fish the Blackwater. It was a vibrant part of rural tourism, supporting accommodation providers, ghillies, pubs, restaurants and local communities.

Today, that angling tourism has all but disappeared. Wild Atlantic salmon, once so abundant and so deeply woven into Irish folklore that it appeared on the old 10p coin, are now in crisis.

There are many contributing factors: climate change, rising sea temperatures, reduced zooplankton energy, overfishing, predation, poor river management, and the impact of fish farming — from sea lice to escaped farmed salmon weakening wild genetics.

But what is most difficult to accept is the lack of urgency in protecting one of Ireland’s most iconic species.

The collapse of wild salmon is not only an environmental tragedy. It is a cultural, economic and rural tragedy too.

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