Armagh City, Banbridge & Craigavon Borough Council, UK Lurgan Stories, 16 Mar 2023

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From YouTube: Lurgan Stories: Notes from Deep Time

Description

A new trail pamphlet developed by the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland has been released which provides an insight into Lurgan’s underlying geology, while also explaining the origins of the building stone used in many of the town’s landmark historic buildings. With building stones from across the UK and Ireland, and even as far afield as Norway, this guided tour helps tell a geological story that is over 400 million years in the making.

The trail has been published by the Lurgan Townscape Heritage Scheme, which is supported by the Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council and the Lottery Players, through The National Lottery Heritage Scheme. Find out more at: www.lurgantownscapeheritage.com

A

My name's mark cooper. I work for the geological survey of northern ireland. I'm delighted to be part of this project developing this geology and built heritage trail here in logan.

A

My job as a geologist is to understand how the earth works. I mainly make maps that show people where things are where the different rock types are below our feet. What sort of deposits are hiding the rocks in different areas, and this kind of information is really important for our economy.

A

We need to know where our natural resources are things that we use every day, things that we will need in the future. The range of rocks that are below our feet determine how we've developed as people through the centuries and lergan's urban environment has been influenced by that geodiversity.

A

This trail combines the underlying geology with the buildings, the rocks that have been quarried delivered to logan and that have been used to make those buildings. It combines those two things together and helps to helps us to understand. The history of logan. Logan is a really special place in terms of building stone.

A

Rock here has been taken from quarries locally, our basalt or our blackstone from places not too far afield. Antrum. We see rhyolite coming from there sandstone from dungannon and donnygall limestone from armar. There are even rocks that are coming in from much further afield, so we see portland stone from the south coast of england and even lava kite from norway of all the buildings. I think I think my favorite has to be um saint peter's parish church.

A

It combines basalt beautifully shaped blocks uh with surrounding uh limestone from armar, and the two work together really well, um it's a beautiful place and to combine the geology with the built heritage. Just makes it a very special experience.

B

I'm david ware and I'm the education activities officer for the large townscape heritage scheme and we're delighted to have worked with the geological survey of northern ireland to produce this new geological and built heritage of largon and really the idea for it came from lorgan's name, which actually comes from an irish word: ambergaan, which means the shin ship, ridge or the long low ridge and really we're sort of thinking. Well, where did that ridge come from and in this trail you'll find out?

B

It's actually the result of the nice of the icy it's an ich feature, and from that we then decided well. Where did the word? What about the building stone? Where did they come from? Because when you go through largon you'll see a lot of buildings built from this lovely sort of black stone this basalt and then, through the trail, you'll find that underneath this ridge we have a big plane of basalt, which is a volcanic stone.

B

So when we look at largon's landscape, we're looking at something that was shaped by the ice age and volcanic activity.

C

I'm councillor louise mckinstry and I am chairperson of the lurgan tidescape heritage partnership. The lurgan towerscape heritage scheme is a partnership between the national lottery heritage fund and irma bambridge and craigavenborough council and they've really got two main aims.

C

The first is to restore and rejuvenate and to bring back into use some of our old buildings in the town centre and make our town centre even more vibrant um than it has been, and also we want to engage the local community in an education program that not only talks about these buildings that we're restoring and bringing back to life, but also, um for example. Today, with this geology trail and talking about the underlying rocks in our area and how they've shaped large and into the town, it is today.

D

I'm donald mccone born and bred in largan. I live here now, I'm a resident and I love largan. Today's tour was phenomenal. I thought I know plenty about the town I learned so much more about its heritage and about its sustainability.

D

From all around the place, I found out all about the rocks below me on the rocks nearby. It's a fabulous idea, an initiative. I love the map. I love the fact that there will be opportunities for the people of logan to find out more about this and I hope to be somewhere in the middle of that, because I'm a tour guide as well as a local journalist.

D

The story has to get out to a wider field and it's just a brilliant story.

D