Journeying through a Hidden Ireland of picturesque landscapes & fascinating histories

 

Journeying through a Hidden Ireland of picturesque landscapes & fascinating histories

In an effort to introduce many of my university colleagues at DSI/Insight and my fellow volunteers at the Tuatha of Terryland Forest Park who may not be familiar with the rich heritage of Ireland, I organised for their benefit a series of summer excursions to parts of rural Galway that are ‘off the beaten track’. That is, destinations that are not on popular tourist trails.

Yet they are undoubtedly fascinating and beautiful places in my humble estimation.

 

The first excursion was on Saturday July 20th.

 

1. Our first stop was to the lovely wooded hill of Knockma, supposedly the birthplace of the legendary Queen Maeve of Connacht and where there are many pretty wooden sculptures of animals and mythological figures. Actually it was a lot busier than I expected with locals and people from nearby Tuam enjoying its walking hill trails.

 

2. Then it was onto Monivea Woods where we visited the neo-Gothic castle-like mausoleum with its ornate marble Christian chapel and eerie crypt. It was completed in 1900 to serve as the final resting place of the British diplomat Robert Percy Ffrench within the demesne of his Irish landed estate by his daughter Kathleen de Kindiakoff with monies provided from her mother's aristocratic family estates along the River Volga in Tsarist Russia.

 

3. From there we went to the nearby Eddie Ned’s pub for lunch. A fine hostelry, it is located in the in the picturesque little village of Monivea that still bears the characteristics of its linen industry and colonial plantation past.

 

4. Our next stop was to the historical Castle Ellen, the home of the amazing 89+ year old Michael Keaney who happily showed us around his historical mansion and secret gardens which were built in 1820. This historical house was the birthplace of Isabella Lambert, the mother of arch-Unionist Edward Carson, a member of the British Imperial war cabinet in World War 1 and one of the founders of Northern Ireland which led to the partition of Ireland in 1921.

 

5. Finally we visited the woods and walked the trails beside Woodlawn House (which sadly is not now publicly accessible). Originally built in the 1760s with its 26 bedrooms, walled garden, courtyard, gatehouse, gardener's house and artificial lake, it was the home of Baron (Lord) Ashdown and was one of the finest houses of the landed nobility during the British colonial period.

A giant Fairy Ring appears in the heart of the Forest

Last weekend, volunteers from the Tuatha finished off phase 1 of a giant 'fairy ring' in the centre of the sacred Oak Grove within Terryland Forest Park.

Its construction will add another exciting mythological and scientific feature to the Outdoor Classroom dimension of the park

A circle of fungi is a beautiful natural phenomena that is the surface representation of a network of small threads, called mycelium, that form part of what we now refer to as the Wood Wide Web, a mutually beneficial underground communications and resource-sharing system connecting the trees of a forest.

In mythology these mushroom circles were known as Fairy Rings where the 'little people' merrily danced in the woods under the moonlight.

William Butler Yeats mentions this in his poem The Stolen Child:

"...We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight..."

The giant toadstools were made from concrete under the supervision of Michael McDonnell, one of the finest of Galway craftsman and lovingly painted by Tuatha volunteers including Helen Caird

Oak Groves were associated as places of learning and ceremony during Celtic pagan and early Christianity. Our Oak Grove where the fairy ring is located comprises a circle of oak trees planted by volunteers in March 2000.

Sadly the tree in the centre fell during Storm Eowyn but was replaced recently by a semi-mature oak secured by Galway City Council parks department in county Wicklow.

Creating a giant 'Fairy Ring' at Christmastime

 

Volunteers from the Tuatha and Cumann na bhFear came together just before Christmas to create a giant fairy ring in the centre of the sacred Oak Grove within Terryland Forest Park.

A circle of fungi is a beautiful natural phenomena in nature that is the surface representation of a network of small threads, called mycelium, that form part of what we now refer to as the Wood Wide Web, a mutually beneficial underground communications and resource-sharing system connecting the trees of a forest.

In mythology these mushroom circles were known as Fairy Rings where the 'little people' merrily danced in the woods under the moonlight.

William Butler Yeats mentions this in his poem The Stolen Child:

"...We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight..."

 

These giant toadstools were made from concrete by the brilliant Michael McDonnell, one of the finest of Galway craftsman. Under his supervision, Tuatha volunteers will make more of these beautiful sculptures next month that, when put in place in the forest and individually painted, will be used by school children to sit on in another exciting and fun Outdoor Classroom.

Oak Groves are associated as places of learning and ceremony during Celtic pagan and early Christianity. Our Oak Grove where the fairy ring is located comprises a circle of oak trees planted by volunteers in March 2000

A Pheasant in Hare's Corner: A Good Omen for our Nature Restoration Plans!

 

As members of the Tuatha volunteers of Terryland Forest Park entered on Saturday a field designated for an exciting and ambitious rewilding project, I was somewhat taken aback when a startled cock pheasant rose up from the long grass at my feet and took flight into the sky.

Everyone of us present though considered it a good omen for plans towards a field recently purchased by City Council, after years of community lobbying, that has been absorbed into Terryland Forest Park.

Thanks to the collaborative approach and vision of City Council’s Biodiversity Officer Paula Kearney, City Parks’ Foreman Kevin Nally, Parks’ groundsman Edward Skehill and Deputy Parks’ Superintendent Lisa Smyth, a partnership with the Tuatha will transform the field into a large multi-layer pond and surrounding marsh with a viewing platform, a wet woodland, a native orchard, and an extensive hedgerow. The installation of a wooden bridge over the adjacent Terryland River will connect this site onto the Ogham Heritage Trail on the western side whilst the neighbouring fields to the north that also lie within Terryland Forest Park will become a major wildlife sanctuary (no human footfall).

An first step in making this ambitious plan become a reality was for members of our Tuatha of Terryland Forest Park volunteer group to meet onsite with the wonderful Rob Gandola, one of Ireland’s leading Pond Development Officers, to discuss our submission to Burren Beo under the Hare’s Corner initiative. Rob was so excited about our pond/wetlands proposal and feels that if successful it could become a gold standard and a case study for all Local Authorities. So fingers crossed that our Hare’s Corner submission will prove successful and will start the process in transforming a grassland into a significant nature restoration volunteer project.

A beautiful 19th century Drystone Wall restored

A team of Tuatha volunteers were involved last weekend on restoring a traditional stone wall made from local limestone that served as a rural field boundary when much of the high lands of Terryland Forest Park were primarily pasture.

Research is presently going on to find out its origins. But it is felt that it was constructed as early as the late 19th century if not before.

The Tuatha volunteers are presently actively working with the parks department of Galway City Council in developing and implementing what they feel is an exciting innovative programme of initiatives that will bring a whole new array of features to Terryland Forest Park over the next year which will enhance its importance as an example of the temperate rainforests that once covered Ireland before the colonial period, as a native wildlife sanctuary, an outdoor classroom, a repository of rural heritage, a major force within the city in tackling the Climate Crisis, and in the provision of artistic walking trails and cycling routes.

Next year we want to be fully prepared in helping the people of Galway celebrate the twenty fifth anniversary of a park that was born out of a wonderfully proactive collaboration between Galway Corporation (now Galway City Council) and the wider community. When  it came into existence it was Ireland’s largest urban native woodland and was officially known as the ‘Lungs of the City’. Its founders drawn from the local government, community, state, educational, scientific and artistic sectors were in reality visionary pioneering advocates in developing within an urban environment a response to what they recognised as a looming climate and biodiversity crises. It is only now in the last few years that the public are realising the huge significance of what was happening in Galway city in the year 2000.

Connecting a 21st century urban forest to the primeval forests of ancient Ireland.

 

A few weeks ago as part of the wonderful pioneering European-wide More Trees Now initiative, the Tuatha volunteers planted in Terryland Forest Park oak tree saplings that came from Coolattin Woods nursery and were donated by the inspirational educationalist Denise Garvey.

This is the second such gift from Denise who gave us similar oak saplings last year that became the foundation for a Ukrainian woods in Terryland.

Coolattin Woods in Wicklow is one of the final remnants of the great primeval forests that covered Ireland until the great clearances of the plantation period from the early 17th century onwards.

But much of the last trees left in Coolattin were only cleared during the 1970s and 1980s and exported as high quality veneer. It took the first large scale eco campaign in Ireland of the modern era lasting nearly 20 years to save the last of its ancient trees in the locality of Tomnafinnogue following the direct intervention by the then Taoiseach Charles Haughey

UK businessman and Wicklow resident Brian Kingham took over Coollattin in 2016 and has undertaken an ambitious reforestation of the estate.

So we are so proud that the community-council driven Terryland native forest now has a direct connection the birth of the Irish environmental movement and the great forests of ancient Ireland.

May we in the Tuatha wish everyone a joyful New Year and amy we all contribute in our own way towards making 2024 a year of progress in tackling the Climate and Biodiversity Crises.