We were asked by Donegal County Museums to help document historical sites around Inch Island through aerial photography, video, and 3D mapping for the CINE project - a collaborative digital heritage project between 9 partners and 10 associated partners from Norway, Iceland, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
The CINE Project documents the life of the island, creating a virtual museum. Starting with how it was formed by volcanic rock billions of years ago, it explores the beautiful island’s extraordinary heritage. They interviewed the current inhabitants and gleamed some amazing stories which have been passed down the generations - from fairy forts, fisherman tales, helicopter pilots, folklore, famine and civil war battles - it’s fair to say that the island has a colourful history!
My job was to help document the remaining historical sites on the island, from the famous Inch Castle (pictures below), to WW1 gun forts and even ancient burial tombs where the islanders are rumoured to have buried their King (a site which historians have dated as potentially several thousand years old!)
Below is a picture of Inch Castle, sometimes known as O’Doherty’s Castle. The castle was constructed around 1430 and has seen many battles down the years. To read more about its colourful history, see a drone fly by of the site and much more, visit the project’s new website HERE
The most challenging aspect of this job for us was the 3D Mapping. Using our Phantom 4 Pro drone we were able to complete an automated flight while taking thousands of images of each site, allowing us to create highly accurate 3D models. This is is a cost effective and powerful way to map and digitise buildings or large areas. For the CINE project we produced various 3D models of historic sites around the island. These will be used to primarily record what state the buildings are currently in, allowing Donegal County Museum to monitor the health of the buildings going forward. See the 3D model of Inch Castle below.