The Athenry Castles Heritage Looped Cycle Trail.

A delightful journey of discovery through a beautiful hidden landscape

of east Galway.

August Country Fair Day, Monivea

Tour Times/Dates: 9.30am, Sunday June 21st

Duration: circa. 7hrs

Start location and route: Athenry Castle, continue onto Monivea Bog, to Monivea village, then onto Castle Ellen and finish up at Athenry Castle. 

Organiser: Cumann na bhFear (Men's Shed, Ballinfoile).
Contact: Brendan Smith, speediecelt@gmail.com 
The event is being organised in assocation with Galway Bike Festival and the national Bike Week.

With its largely unspoilt landscape of small farms, hedgerows, stone walls, lakes, bogs, rivers, castles, Gerogian mansions, network of botharíns and villages, east Galway is a largely unknown landscape waiting to be discovered by walkers and cyclists. 

The aim of this pioneering heritage tour is to open up a new heritage route that will allow visitors to experience these wonderful timeless features and environment by way of a leisurely cycle through a representative section of east Galway that could  act as a catalyst in the development of  a network of Greenways.

The circa 30km looped cycle tour will start at Athenry where we will have a guided tour of the Castle (above) followed by a visit to the stalls  of the Bia (Irish - food) Lover Food Festival. After our hunger for food and local history of the town is satisfied we travel onto the Monivea Road before turning right approximately a mile outside Athenry in the direction of Graigabbey. 

The participants will then cycle through the farmlands and bogs of Bengarra, (above) on into the village of Newcastle, along a botharín through the Monivea Bog with its fascinating flora and fauna; to the Monivea demesne with its collection of historical sites that was for centuries the home of the renowned Anglo-Norman fFrench family, one of the famous merchant tribes of Galway. 

fFrench Mausoleum

This will be followed by a stopover in the quaint plantation village of Monivea. 

From there the tour will continue onto Castle Ellen (above) for a picnic on the lawns of the famed Georgian mansion that was formerly the residency of the Anglo-Irish Lambert family. After a guided tour of the demesne by Its owner Michael Keaney, participants will cycle onto towards the town of Athenry to finish up at Athenry Castle. 

Abaondoned farm, Currantarmuid

Monivea Wood

A Neighbourhood Eating Together in Galway city

The Ballinfoile Mór Community Organic Garden in Galway city is hosting this Saturday (August 30^th) from 12.00-2.00pm a very special Neighbourhood Food Together event entitled Le Chéile Agus Bia Sláinte. 

For the fourth annual harvest festival of a community garden located in the Terryland Forest Park, there will be a focus on promoting the concept of residents getting to known each other better by the simple approach of sitting down together to enjoy fresh food produce grown in the community organic garden. Tarts, jams. salads, baked potatoes and pizzas will be on offer, local musicians will be playing and all attendees are asked to make a small donation towards the project’s overheads and a special local charity. 

The garden project promotes access to fresh locally-grown healthy food; environmental awareness; biodiversity protection; teaching and learning of Irish heritage and traditional rural skills; social interaction and a healthy lifestyle. 

 

As Ireland experienced unprecedented economic and social change over a few short decades changing from being a rural society to that of an urbanised environment, alienation has become a huge problem in our country. A housing estate or any suburban development can often be a lonely place for an individual even though he/she is surrounded by hundreds even thousands of people. We have to reverse this trend and start turning 'urban sprawl' into 'urban villages' by amongst other things promoting the hosting of local neighbourhood events in order to give residents a ‘sense of place’ and a feeling of ‘community’.

The Neighbourhood Food Together and Harvest Festival in our community garden is part of this movement of change. 

We are asking people to come along and experience a wonderful neighbourhood facility that inclues an orchard, vegetable plots, herbal garden, outdoor stage, polytunnel, clay oven, drystone walls and fairy garden developed over the last four years by local volunteers.

 

The Giant Celtic Cross & other Garden Stories

Volunteers are needed on Saturday (July 26) to help with a plethora of tasks within the Ballinfoile Mór Community Organic Garden and surrounding woodland area, including the maintenance/upkeep/development of a Living Willow Tunnel, a Wildlife Pond, Weeding, Scarecrow construction, Pathway enhancement and laying the foundations for a giant Celtic Cross feature that will form the axis of the garden.

We could use your presence on the day! 

Google Maps location: https://goo.gl/maps/YW3Zj

The Celtic Cross takes shape!

The photograph above shows the top section of the 'Celtic Cross': each of the four sun panels are covered with clay planted with wild-flowers under the supervision of Christine McGowan. Plus regular volunteers such as Caroline Mc Donagh, Deasún ÓSeanáin, Michael McDonnell Justine Delaney and other local residents are doing wonderful working bringing Nature into an urban setting.