Irish Astronomy Week 2024

I am Ronan Newman and for those who do know me, I was the lead organiser behind Irish Astronomy Week in 2023, an event proved extremely successful with a broad spectrum of astronomical outreach events held in libraries, schools, planateriums, dark sky parks and individual astronomy clubs throughout the Island of Ireland from March 20th to the 26th last year.

In 2023 we raised over €1500, that was spent on building a new website, creating an event banner, and posting posters and bookmarks that were kindly donated by KTEC telescopes to over 120 libraries throughout the island that were holding astronomy book displays. We used up all of the remaining funds this year to fund updates to our website and its re-registration online.

Irish Astronomy Week takes place from March 9th to the 16th this year, the theme is entitled "From Your Garden to the Stars" and we invite people to go out to their gardens and start exploring the night sky.

It’s all voluntary from the people like me who behind the scenes coordinate the events, right down to the speakers and amateur astronomers who kindly share their time and passion for astronomy in all its forms.

Many of the talks this year are either family geared events or private talks to children who are coming to libraries in the expectation of being inspired in wonder and awe. Children love to dream and are naturally curious, astronomy is a great way to nurture that curiosity. Learning about the planets, stars, and galaxies can inspire wonder and amazement in young minds, leading them to ask questions and build a strong foundation for future learning in science. By encouraging children to explore the wonders of the universe and spark their interest in astronomy our hope is that more children will become interested in the hobby join our many astronomy clubs nationwide.

So, before the week is upon us, we are reaching out to everyone in the astronomical community to please to make a small donation to us that will be used to fund postage costs of the bookmarks and posters to the participating libraries and schools.

Thank You

Ronan Newman

www.irishastronomyweek.ie