Sinead Seoighe

The area in a sense is like a hidden gem and there is that part of you that wants to keep it that way because it's such a beautiful place but at the same time people need to live and survive in this area.

We started attracting a lot of geology groups coming to Petersburg so for example American universities were bringing their students for a month of geology.

because they could cover all their geology in about 30 kilometres radius around Petersburg and Joyce country, that they would have to travel the entire continent of the United States.

Because our geology here records the closing of the Iapetus Ocean, the ocean that existed before the current Atlantic Ocean,

We're talking about millions of years, about 700 million years of geological history.

And some of the early pioneers of plate tectonics, for example, studied in this area.

And because they were noticing similarities in the rocks here and in Wales,

and the Appalachians in America, they could see that we had once been a giant continent all joined together, which then split apart.

So the geology is amazing.

So community activists back in 2008, 2009, we were looking at how do you kind of help the tourism in the area?

And we came across the concept of geoparks.

And at the time, they were just European geoparks.

They then went to global.

We're now one of 241 Geoparks in 51 countries in the world but it's a small number and they have to have that significant geology first but also buy-in from the communities.

The area is recognised as a Geopark because of that geology but it's the community buy-in that's essential.

So we are now a Geopark and it's fantastic to be able to use the term UNESCO Global Geopark.

And a lot of people, even locally, still sometimes say to me, what's the Geopark all about?

It's a model for rural development, is my easiest way to explain it.

It's utilising the natural landscape.

the heritage of the area and the buy-in and community spirit that are in places like this.