Our built heritage is of profound importance, rooting us to our surroundings and giving us context for who we are and where we come from. But where does it come from? Who built these impressive buildings, from grand Georgian establishments to the humble yet tenacious thatched cottage? They were all born by the hand of a skilled craftsperson.

One doesn’t have to search hard in Ireland to find an old building and to notice the work done by a skilled hand, be it by a craftsperson or the owner of a vernacular building. We know they were skilled people because the buildings are still standing hundreds of years later. As a structural engineer, I know that we typically design buildings today for a fifty-year design life, nowhere near the lifespan achieved by traditional buildings, built by expert craftspeople.

We are living in a climate emergency, and we know that the greenest building is the one that already exists. So in a country with a huge vacancy rate, facing into a housing and climate crisis, we should be championing our craftspeople, who have the skills and know-how to repair and maintain our old buildings.

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A key barrier is the shortage of skilled craftspeople to do conservation work, across all trades. It seems that people are simply not interested in pursuing a career ‘in the trades’ in Ireland. We, as a society, have fed into the narrative that to pursue an apprenticeship after leaving school is for those ‘who didn't get the points to go to college’ but hopefully that mindset is beginning to shift. Although there have been moves in recent years to increase the number of apprenticeships, through the likes of the Action Plan for Apprenticeship as part of the Programme for Government [1], there is a huge backlog in start dates for craft apprenticeships in particular and formal conservation skills training is difficult to come by. There is also a danger that the likes of bricklaying or stonemasonry apprenticeships don’t necessarily provide the right skills for conservation work, depending on the employer’s recent work (which could be all new-build).

While there are conservation skills training courses currently provided by NGOs and private organisations, these are disparate, often one-off, and tend to be aimed at the DIY-er rather than the person looking to upskill for work.

So what could be done? Like most issues, decent funding would be a massive help. Funding to run a state-funded conservation craft skills training centre, headed up by experienced craftspeople, would be a huge boost to the sector. Better still, several skills training hubs across the country, with attractive salaries for those who can share their skills and no/low fees for those who wish to learn. A good source of inspiration might be the Engine Shed, Scotland’s dedicated building conservation hub, which delivers skills development and training for the heritage sector.

An Irish version of this might be located in the midlands, where anyone from across the island could easily travel to. There are plentiful derelict farmsteads and stable yards, for example, where a permanent training centre could feasibly be located. The existing farm buildings could be repaired as part of on-site workshops, with certain parts left half-done and un-repaired altogether, in order to show the repair works at various stages.Permanent demonstration panels/models could be set up on site on a large scale, so that someone could practice the basics of thatching, for example, undoing and redoing it over and over again (which would not be feasible on a real project).

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Demonstration panels wouldn’t work as well for other craft skills, but there is no shortage of buildings all over the country in need of repair. Once the central skills training centre could develop a base curriculum, staff, and equipment, there should be no limit to the range of mobile workshops and classes that could take place on live sites around Ireland.

Funding could also be used to incentivise experienced craftspeople to take on apprentices. Compulsory employment of apprentices on large, state-funded conservation projects could be another option, which wouldn’t require any funding. Voluntary organisations like Irish Traditional Skills Initiative should be supported in their aims to develop skills training and connect aspiring apprentices with experienced professionals [2].

We still need to change the narrative that an apprenticeship after secondary school is somehow lesser than going on to university. A national awareness campaign to encourage young people, or maybe more importantly, their parents, to consider alternatives to university could have merit. Career guidance counsellors could also be targeted to promote hands-on learning more widely to second-level students. The recent steps to include apprenticeships on the CAO is a step in the right direction but we need to do more to make sure that like neglected old buildings, our treasured supply of craftspeople doesn’t crumble away.