Help Create a new Wetland in the heart of Galway City

 

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.

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