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.