The Heritage Council yesterday awarded grants totalling almost €500,000 for 89 projects run by community groups across the State.
The Local Heritage Grant Awards were supported by Ford Ireland.
A wide range of projects received the grants, which were announced yesterday at a ceremony in Kilkenny.
The projects funded includes the repair of stone work on a fish pass to facilitate salmon swimming upstream.
The restoration of a community bogland was also funded, together with the conservation of what the Heritage Council calls Ireland's oldest apple orchards in Daingean, Co Offaly, with the involvement of the Irish Seed Savers' Association.
A similar project involved creating a heritage Irish pear, plum, damson and cherry collection.
A grant was also provided for a study on the renovation in Cork city of a national monument for use as social housing.
Other local community initiatives involved creating wildlife corridors, nature and walking trails, and wildlife gardens.
"Heritage belongs to people and communities. These awards play a huge role in raising awareness about our heritage and the value that can be created by protecting and enhancing it," said Dr Tom O'Dwyer, chairman of the Heritage Council.
"Much of our precious heritage would be lost forever if it was not for the efforts of individuals and groups throughout the country who give up their time to carry out such wonderful work."
The Heritage Council has been running the Local Heritage Grant Awards scheme since 1997, and the council says the scheme's purpose is to "encourage local groups to take an active interest in their own heritage and to enable them to undertake projects which protect and raise awareness of heritage as a rich and diverse resource".
Previous Heritage Council-funded projects include the Waterford Suir Valley Railway Project and the restoration of the Walled Garden at Kylemore Abbey.
Mr Eddie Murphy, chairman of Ford Ireland, said "the real beneficiaries of the programme are not the 89 grant recipients, but the thousands of people whose communities will be enhanced through their projects".
