IHBC Director Seán O’Reilly has offered the IHBC’s perspectives on conservation standards for skills, training and professional development as part of a wide-ranging exploration of conservation capacity in a conference in Dublin on 16 October.
The conference was jointly organised by Dublin City Council and ICOMOS Ireland National Scientific Committee on Education and Training, with the support of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The extensive programme, which took place in Oak Room, Mansion House, Dawson Street, explored the theme of ‘Views on capacity-building in heritage conservation training and practice’.
Seán O’Reilly spoke to the theme of ‘Capacity-building and conservation accreditation in an inter-disciplinary institute’, joining a wide-range of heritage practitioners, explaining how the IHBC’s Conservation Cycle and the Areas of Competence are used to assess competence.
Sessions covered issues such as the importance of dedicated conservation skills in delivering sustainable results, to Ireland’s unique ‘Register of Heritage Contractors’. This last was presented by Michael O’Sullivan, Chair Register of Heritage Contractors Registration Board, and offers a resource that, session Chair and COTAC trustee Paul McMahon noted, offered a uniquely successful model for other countries to follow.
The day concluded with a detailed consideration of potential opportunities, in an ‘Open’ discussion on the significance and importance of competence in architectural conservation, centred on the work of COTAC and the Edinburgh Group to build capacity and verify competence led by Ingval Maxwell, Chair of COTAC, the Council on Training in Architectural Conservation.
Find out about ICOMOS Ireland
For COTAC’s 2015 conference, on 12 November, sponsored by the IHBC, ‘Connecting Conservation’, and which will have a keynote address by Jukka Jokilehto (ICCROM), see the website
