Thursday 9 August 2012

Irish Heritage Magazine launches

 Bright, inviting and professional: Irish Heritage Magazine

A new weekly publication, Irish Heritage Magazine, has launched online this week. It aims to have wide appeal to everyone of Irish heritage, wherever they live, and will bring a mix of cultural and general news features, details of events, travel articles, recipes, business and even technology news – just the kind of broad brush you'd expect from a magazine rather than a newspaper.

It's a good looking site, built to professional standards, and the subject matter of the stories on the launch issue gives you a good idea of where it's going: National Heritage Week, Ireland's Renewable Energy Plan, a history book review, The Burren Ecotourism project, 'Irish blogs we love', Katie Taylor's remarkable Olympic journey...

Irish Heritage Magazine can be found at www.me-heritage.com. It's the brainchild of New Yorker Peter Kevin Connell who is a fifth generation Corkman on his paternal line and a third generation Kerryman on his mother's side.

'I've wanted to start this magazine for some now, at least two years,' he told Irish Genealogy News. 'I got interested in family heritage research about then and have been thinking of ways to encourage others ever since.' There were, however, some rather deeper personal reasons, which he shares in his editorial Not just another pretty (Irish) face in the magazine.

Peter also wants to reignite interest in tourism and economic development in Ireland. 'A few years ago, Ireland was an economic powerhouse. It will be that again. Some of the articles in Irish Heritage Magazine are to help steer it in that direction.'

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, the magazine site will be joined by sister sites with dedicated aims. These include a business directory and genealogy/heritage forum.

I like the concept behind Irish Heritage Magazine and wish Peter every success.


UPDATE: August 2014 – Irish Heritage Magazine doesn't seem to have made it. I can't find it live online, so I've removed all the dead links from the story above.