Smart Villages

The Smart Villages initiative is the epitome of KLP’s focus to explore innovative ways to develop new opportunities which would improve the economic, social, and cultural quality of life for the people, communities and small enterprises in the county.

KLP has a particular broad-based approach to what comprises ‘smartness’ in the Irish rural concept. It certainly involves technological and communications infrastructure, but also a valuing of social inclusion, culture, environment, and mobility in planning.

The true ‘smart community’ appreciates that just as we have accepted that human intelligence there are several types of that quality, so with ‘Smart Villages/ Towns/ Parishes’ we need to think beyond the narrow focus osf just broadband connectivity to what we will do with that connection and among ourselves.  The Smart Villages initiative is the epitome of KLP’s focus to explore innovative ways to develop new opportunities which would improve the economic, social, and cultural quality of life for the people, communities, and small enterprises in the county. This “smart living “drive is an all-inclusive planning approach for Kilkenny involving technology, communications infrastructure, environmental issues, social inclusion, culture, and transportation. The concept for this progressive initiative emerged from the EU’s efforts to ensure that rural areas get the same focus in terms of the implementation of innovation as do cities and large towns.

KLP held a number of Smart Village Training Events over the pass 2 years inviting KLP members and residents to participate in the strategic planning for a “smarter community”. They focused on how rural communities must be empowered to create and implement their own local visions within a balanced bottom-up and top down development and governance process.  The events encouraged rural towns and villages to explore its capacity to grow and develop.  Together we can learn how to more resilient as a community.  We can use all of available resource to protect against challenges and become more aware of opportunities.

The events were divided into 4 programmes: Nature & Nurture, Food for the soul, Access all Areas and Our Town.  Topics ranged from raising awareness of our rivers, rural transport, the challenges facing rural towns and the issues of finding new ways to spend money locally. KLP will continue to focus on community themes that will further explore how to improve the quality of life for the people of Kilkenny.

Smart Village Case Studies
Lingaun Valley App

The Lingaun Valley, has created a high tech national first, with the launch its “augmented reality” (AR) smartphone application to three high prestige heritage-tourism sites. Southwest Kilkenny’s emerging tourism region has stolen a march on much larger and more established hot spots by creating a free app to allow visitors to both see the three sites as they were when first developed up to thousands of years ago. The project, which focused on the sites at Knockroe Passage Tomb, the Kilkerian High Cross monastic complex and the Killamery High Cross and heritage cemetery, was led by Kilkenny LEADER Partnership, in cooperation with the community group Lingaun Valley Tourism and Kilkenny County Council.  To download the app follow the links below :

Please follow the App Guide for more information:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVONCm4G6WM

Broadband Case study

It’s not every day a rural community decides to quite literally get down into the trenches and build its own Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network. But Piltown and Fiddown, a growing hinterland close to the Kilkenny-Waterford-Tipperary border, is no ordinary community so nothing was going to get in its way.