On
Saturday next (Oct 5th) we need volunteers to help bring a whole new
dimension to the multi-habitat Terryland Forest Park in the lead-up to
its 25th birthday celebrations in 2025.
To
complement the park’s native woodlands, native wildflower meadows,
waterways, and karst limestone outcrops, we need as many volunteers as
possible to help lay down the surface of a 1000 square metre pond as the
first step in an ambitious new wetland project, by a partnership between the Tuatha volunteers and Galway City Parks department, that will over the
coming year encompass a wet woodland and marshes as part of a major
nature restoration project for Galway city. This work will be also
include the installation of a viewing platform, a bridge over the
nearby Terryland River and the creation of an adjacent wildlife
sanctuary (free of human footfall).
Rendezvous
Time: 10am - 1pm
Location: ‘An Nead’ (Irish for ‘Nest’ & volunteer HQ), Terryland Forest Park entrance, Sandy Road, Galway City. Google Maps Link-
Requirements: Wear suitable clothing and boots for wet and outdoor conditions.
Volunteer Tasks
Volunteers
tasks will include jumping up and down (to music!) on the recently
excavated pond (thanks to Paula Kearney, Lisa Smyth and Kevin Nally of
Galway City Council Parks Department) in order to compress the soil base
as well as plant locally sourced flora on its raised banks. Last
Saturday international students from the Just 3 initiative in the
University of Galway were introduced to Galway as they began the
pond-making process, by happily foot stomping to world music ranging
from American hip-hop to Irish trad to Punjabi disco!
The
photo shows some of the students jumping up and down on what looks like
a sandy beach in Terryland Forest Park but is in actual fact the
remains of ancient aquatic wildlife that lived in what was once a large
lake or marine environment.
Restoring a lost Wetland
In
the early 1840s, an ambitious plan to build a long dyke wall to
increase the water flow into the city to power mills and distilleries in
Galway city was carried out. The result was the Dyke Road and the
gradual draining of wetlands that existed between Terryland Castle and
Castlegar Castle which transformed over time into farm pasture. A large
part of this area was zoned in the mid 1990s for a future forest park
either side of the remnant of a much larger Corrib catchment, namely the
Terryland River.
The
work of volunteers next Saturday will help restore some of a once
extensive wetland and bring back a population of aquatic flora and fauna
into the community-driven publicly owned forest park managed by Galway
City Council.
