Funding Body
Arts and Humanities Research Council
About the Project
We aspire to educate national and international visitors to places where various fishing activities were practiced in the 19th and 20th centuries, and where once vibrant traditions of vernacular boat building existed.
To achieve this, our team has developed an interactive mobile-based application for Android and iOS devices that will reveal this information to visitors, in collaboration with Ulster Transport Museum at Cultra (NMNI).
The Maritime Trail App deepens our understanding of the importance of the Irish maritime tradition from Belfast to Giant’s Causeway, from Rathlin to Donegal.
Project Objectives
This app will unlock the tangible and intangible maritime heritage of Ireland, using cutting-edge software enriched with specialist knowledge. Based upon 5 boats from the NMNI collection, scanned using 3D lidar technology, mapped onto 5 locations around Ireland, and linked to 10 stories, the proposed AR application, which will work on the Android and iOS operating systems, creates an effective and immediate approach to such coastal locations and related information.
The app will be made available in a multilingual interface to cater for both English and non-English speaking audiences and will be disseminated in collaboration with our partners.
The app can be accessed externally, outside the confines of museums, and so international tourists and local citizens will have the opportunity to experience NMNI collections in the immediate natural environment. By broadening the existing digital library of heritage tourism resources, the app will increase tourism footfall across Northern Ireland. The app will directly impact NMNI operation and will benefit members of the public, including tourists and visitors to the NMNI Ulster Transport Museum. It will also have a wider educational and environmental appeal.
Dissemination and Outreach
We will organise public roadshows and place a permanent stand to market the app at the Ulster Transport Museum (NMNI) in Cultra, Belfast. The app will also be publicised via NI Tourist Board offices in NI and ROI. As well as providing a link to it on this project website, we will make it available on Google Play / App Store free of charge to visitors to Northern Ireland for download, enabling an integrated statistics tracker to monitor its impact.