A Blameless COVID Youth Generation is Suffering

 

Thanks so much to the Galway City Tribune for publishing my article below 

Exasperated with the high volumes of rubbish strewn on the green spaces along the Dyke Road particularly at weekends, I and my good friend Ryan Crowell on Saturday evening put on yellow vests and walked out amongst the 50 or so young people that were socialising in groups along the riverbank as they enjoyed the fine sunny weather chatting and drinking. We went from group to group telling them that, whilst they should be informed that they were breaking a number of rules (drinking alcohol in public parks, gathering together in groups wearing no masks or practising social distance), we were neither council staff nor members of An Garda Síochána but only concerned civic-minded individuals seeking their cooperation in keeping the green spaces and waterways free from litter which we pointed out damaged biodiversity, the environment and undermined the benefits of a city park to the general public. We then gave each group large black bags which we requested that they use for their leftover cans/bottles/papers should they decide not to bring this material home.  

The response from the youth was very positive and some of them actually helped us collect the scattered litter and put the bags into my car for removal back to my home garden whey they would remain until after the weekend when parks staff returned to work.

Early next morning Ryan and myself visited the same site. I am happy to state that the young people had honoured their promises from the day before; the bags were filled with debris with only a comparatively small amount of cans and bottles lying in the grass or along the riverbank. Over a short period of time (Saturday evening and Sunday morning) on what was a relatively small piece of land, we removed fourteen bags of refuse,  the contents of which would otherwise have contaminated the land and the river with some of it ending up polluting the Atlantic Ocean.

Ryan and myself will continue to return on further weekends to undertake these same necessary volunteering duties.

 

Need for Park Wardens in Galway city is so obvious

The incident reinforced my long held belief that the presence of a full-time seven days per week warden unit, whose members are willing to engage on friendly terms with parks’ visitors,  is an essentiality that city council must implement. Community activists have been requesting this for some time. To support this development we consistently have offered our services free of charge in the capacity of volunteer park rangers to complement the full time staff on specific tasks when required and with health and safety training provided by City Hall.  Sadly we have not yet been successful in our endeavours. But thankfully councillor Imelda Byrne has put forward a motion on park wardens that will be voted on next Monday at a meeting of councillors. At present the city has one warden available on a regular half week basis in Galway. She is a fantastic committed worker but she has to take care of multiple city parks. In a time of lockdowns when green spaces and natural areas in cities have shown their crucial role in protecting human and planetary health as well as being a necessity in a sustainable post-COVID world, this can no longer be accepted, with public parks needing to be cleaned on a daily basis early every morning which is the case with many other cities. Galway City Council needs to rethink its stance, to be imaginative, creative and to ensure that it takes full advantage of the government’s offering of twenty two walking/cycling staff positions with some of these employees being assigned to plan out, design and maintain walking as well as cycling paths in our public green spaces. Such staff should also I feel have their terms of reference expanded to include warden duties.

Damage of being confined indoors & online

But the incident also clearly made me realise that we as adults are responsible for stealing the most precious years from our young people. The first year at third level college is normally when students form friendships that can last a lifetime, as well as taking up interests in social, sport, learning subjects and other activities that will shape their futures. Sadly so many of this generation will miss out on these experiences.

In spite of the hard work and good intentions of teachers and lecturers, many second level as well as third level students have lost out on a qualitative education with online learning not being able to fully compensate for the discipline and focus brought on by the controlled environment of a classroom, a lecture hall or a dedicated shared study facility. Our young people are suffering with their mental and indeed oftentimes physical health being greatly undermined during the lockdowns. Too much time spent in front of a laptop or phone screen disrupts sleep patterns and levels of concentration; can lead to stress, exhaustion and burn-out; exposes one to damaging views of sexual and other types of violence where too often young women in particular are victims and whose abuse is portrayed as ‘normal behaviour’; can distort one’s views of the world with one-sided bias ‘fake news’ arguments; and leaves users open to high levels of bullying and intimidation as well as a disconnect from the real world and opportunities to develop meaningful flesh and blood relationships. Web addiction especially online gaming is too often a consequence of 24/7 connected smart devices. I say this as someone who has for forty years (and still do) proudly promoted the benefits of computing technologies.

The best remedy for online addiction and over-reliance on hand-held devices is to practice periods of ‘digital detox’ and spend regular periods immersed in natural environments, being active on the sporting field or enjoying a leisurely time on green spaces with friends or people of a similar age. But the COVID restrictions are denying them the circumstances to do so in the Great Outdoors which is in fact  the safest place for young people to be as it is responsible for only .01% of transmission cases in Ireland.

A Lost Youth

Youth are forced to spend much of their days indoors, sometimes in poorly ventilated small spaces. All because older people and previous generations have, for short term material gain, brought humanity to the edge of the abyss due to a consumer culture and a linear economy characterised by  Climate Chaos, land/water/air pollution, plant-killing herbicides, insect-killing pesticides and pandemics. Yet even with the global society being brought to its knees in 2020/2021, adults are still making the same mistakes. Expenditure is increasing on military technology; once-off plastic production is spiralling (e.g. huge volumes of PPE masks and liquid bottles being shipped long distances from China) polluting our rivers and oceans in the process; and young people in Hong Kong, Myanmar, India, Iran, Israel, Tunisia, Turkey, Egypt, Ethiopia, Spain, Russia, Belarus, Brazil, the USA and elsewhere are being detained for speaking out against state injustices and abuse of power.

So we as adults have to heed the message of youth as spoken by teenagers such as Greta Thunberg and redouble our efforts to undo the mistakes of the past and present in order to give hope and make a world a better place for generations to come.

 

Le meas,

Brendan Smith

COVID at Christmas was personal.

Birthdays and Christmas are times when families, friends and neighbours in Ireland and elsewhere traditionally gather together for celebrations.

COVID changed all that. So many of us have had to curtail our festivities and reunions.

My own family situation was probably typical of these changing circumstances.

This month was when my youngest son Dáire became 21 and when my lovely wife Cepta reached a milestone birthday. We had originally hoped to mark these very special occasions in one's life with very special hostings. But the COVID restrictions meant Dáire could only celebrate with his student house mates and Cepta received gifts as a substitute for the big (surprise!) party.

My fantastic brother Michael lives with his family in our ancestral home in Carrickmacross. Being ill at present means that he cannot, under totally understandable COVID protective guidelines, receive visitors. So my traditional meet up with him, the wider family members and our mutual friends for social drinks in Monaghan that I look forward too so much at Christmas sadly could not happen. So my visit yesterday on St. Stephen's Day was very muted. Michael and his fine young sons Ethan and Pierce (photo) could really only chat and drink tea with me from a distant.

Neighbours, friends and family have passed away since the Lockdown in March. It has been tough not being able to take part in the traditional gatherings in order to give respect to people that we knew, admired and loved.

Hopefully we will collectively as a society soon take the necessary actions to eliminate the causes of pandemics and the other problems that we are increasingly encountering on a global scale (Climate Change, soil infertility, pollution..) by rebuilding the natural world. Time is running out

Tales from the Home Garden: Inspired by Simon & Garfunkel

Photos show parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme growing in my repaired (using recycled washing line waterproof felt) raised herbal and strawberry bed.

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel would be so proud that I was inspired to do so whilst I was in the garden humming the lyrics of 'Scarborough Fair', the beautiful old English folk song that they rejuvenated in the 1960s.

Check out their legendary version at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ccgk8PXz64

'Black Lives Matter Day': Online Garden Meeting with the residents of the Eglinton Direct Provision Centre.

I was disappointed that I was not at the 'Black Lives Matter' protest yesterday afternoon in Eyre Square as I thought, based on media reporting, that it was called off.
But anyway yesterday morning I was facilitating the first online (Zoom) meeting between garden volunteer residents of the Eglinton Direct Provision Centre in Salthill, garden supremo Kay Synott and artist extraordinaire Monica de Bath.
This has been our first get-together since the beginning of the Great Lockdown and it was so wonderful to finally met up once again 'face-to-face' with my Eglinton friends.
Eight residents were in attendance- Georgina, Jihad, Pretty, Beltar, Elizabeth, Innocent, Thom and Stanley.
A few others were unfortunately missing due to sickness including our good friend and the queen of hearts herself, namely Carole Raftery, a key member of the staff of the Eglinton.
The attendees agreed today on a set of guidelines and a roster to help build on the work that has been done over the last few months under the chairperson of Georgina. Kay has been brilliant during that period in ensuring the delivery of seeds and plants to the Eglinton whilst Monica has kept the spirit of 'art in nature' alive amongst the children of the Eglinton.
I have a special affinity with the residents, management and staff of this direct provision centre since I started volunteering there in 2004. Over the years I have seen so many hard-working people in the Eglinton get Irish residency, and contribute positively to the greater good of their new homeland. Today that tradition continues as the present garden chairperson Georgina will be leaving the centre tomorrow to start a new life elsewhere in Galway. I wish her the very best.
In my time there, I have made many life long friendships amongst residents and staff.
It was really lovely to see today also that the legacy of former residents such as Lyudvig Chadrjyan in putting so much effort in helping to start the community garden over five years ago is still bearing fruit (& vegetables!)

Tales from the Home Garden: Apple Blossom Time becomes the Darling Buds of May

In early May, the apple trees in our garden were covered in the most beautiful blossom, a mass of white flowers. By the end of the month, the flowers had disappeared to be replaced by buds that will in the autumn become Ireland's most famous fruit, loved since time immemorial.

 

In my childhood, all the wealthy houses in our area had orchards of apple (& some pear) trees. It was almost a rite of passage that, as children, we had to undertake our Arthurian quest and steal the most sacred of all fruits that had led Eve astray in the Garden of Eden and changed the course of human history. There were of course obstacles that had to be overcome in order to fulfill our sacred mission. As well as angry owners and vicious dogs to be avoided, there were the chunks of broken glass cemented on the tops of walls surrounding the orchards! But with nimble feet and a lot of luck one could land in the inner garden without cutting oneself. Children of our generation lived dangerously!

Trees of Terryland Forest Park: Hawthorn (Irish = 'Sceach Gheal'). ‘The Fairy Tree’- Symbol of Magic and of Summer.

May is the month of the white blossom when hedgerows and field boundaries across rural Ireland are dotted with trees covered with what from a distance looks like snow but is instead the beautiful white flowers of the Hawthorn tree. Associated with the fairies, the hawthorn or whitethorn was oftentimes feared by Irish people and in many parts of the country was never brought inside a house. People of my generation were the last generation to truly believe in its connection with the Sí (sidhe) and my own wife for this reason stopped me planting hawthorns in our garden when we first got married!

The remains of prehistoric dwellings known as ‘fairy forts’ dot the Irish landscape and are usually evident by the presence of clumps of hawthorn bushes. Solitary hawthorn trees can also be seen in many farmed fields in rural Ireland. In both instances, local people in my time would never cut them down lest bad luck would befall them. This fear may also have something to do with the scent of the hawthorn flower. It is the chemical compound triethylamine, which is one of the first chemicals produced when a human body starts to decompose.

But triethylamine is also found in human semen and vaginal secretions. So no wonder the tree with its white blossom symbolised the lusty month of May, the arrival of summer as the season of fertility and growth. It was when a hawthorn branch on a tree would be decorated with ribbons, pieces of cloth and flowers requesting a good harvest. As with the ash, it was also associated with holy wells which were also linked to female fertility. By September, the pollinated flowers become lush red fruits known as haws. The April leaves were used as a green salad in sandwiches. Jelly was made from the red berries.

Bluebell Woods: Celebrating Terryland Forest Park 2000-2020.

The photograph shows a beautiful bluebell woods in Terryland Forest Park.

Along with the trees, these wildflowers were some of the thousands planted by many volunteers over many years in Ireland's largest community-local government urban forest initiative. As COVID-19 amply shows, the health of people and of the planet depends on Nature. Post-COVID, the natural world and the environment generally have to take centre stage in all policies and decision making, from international agreements to neighbourhood development.

Tales from the Home Garden: 'Old Ways' have become the 'New Ways'

Tonight and a few other times over the last few weeks, I have managed to make some very nice (I’m bias!) desserts using fresh rhubarb from our own garden. We have been growing it for many years now. Combined with custard and topped with cream and laced with lots of sugar, there is nothing like its bitter sweet taste in the whole wide world!
It is a vegetable that my Dad always grew. From my childhood days living in inner city Dublin to my teenage years in Carrickmacross, he always maintained a garden packed also with cabbages, cauliflowers, spuds, carrots, onions as well as a few gooseberry (yuck!) bushes.
Mom used to send me out every autumn foraging for blackberries and raspberries in the hedgerows along the roadsides. We also picked damsons when we visited our farming cousins in Magheracloone. The end result was we enjoyed for many weeks jams served with lashes of butter on thick homemade bread that my granny lovingly made. One of the great outcomes from COVID-19 is that there has been a definite movement back to growing our own nutritious organic foods. Hopefully when the lockdown is over, we will maintain this new revival of old traditions and not revert to buying off-the-shelf cut-priced non-seasonal chemically-treated frozen foods imported from countries where its cultivation is damaging local peoples and their environments. Remember, ‘cheap food’ comes at a huge price to the health of both humans and the planet.

Tales from the Home Garden: My friend the Robin.

I am delighted to report that, in spite of the great lockdown, we have a constant stream of visitors calling to our home.
But they are mainly from the bird world. None more so than Ruadh the Robin. Every time I am digging or weeding amongst the vegetable plots, Ruadh swoops down from a tree to help himself to a worm or two. He often hangs around for a while, alighting on the handle of a spade or on top of a large stone.
Oftentimes, being a highly intelligent animal and cognizant of government COVID-19 guidelines of keeping clean and washing regularly, he enjoys having a good bath in our little water feature. 😁 In fact he is not the only feathered denizen that has done so- I have seen a thrush, a blackbird and a blue tit in its waters. Though I have to state that, observing social distancing protocol, they bathe singly! 😂
As the weather has been so dry lately, I would recommend people that have gardens to provide a water container of some sort for the birds. But be careful where you place it- you don't want to provide a handy meal for the local cats!

Nature in COVID-19: You Were Never Lovelier!

With humankind's hand and footprint so much reduced on the surface of the planet due to COVID-19, the rest of Nature is making a comeback.
The air is dramatically cleaner over China, the dolphins are reappearing in the canals of Venice, the cougars are walking the streets of Santiago and in Galway city, due to the absence of traffic noise pollution, we can actually hear the beautiful melodic sounds of the birds!
And Terryland River (photo) in Terryland Forest Park has never looked so pretty!
So post Covid-19, let's ensure that we learn the correct lessons from this pandemic and not adopt a 'Business as Usual' attitude with all of the mistakes that such a way of life was characterised by

Multi-tasking: Just like a Woman!

Over the last few weeks I, like many others, have rediscovered the use of skills that long ago I stopped using. The COVID-19 lockdown has been a wake-up call to so many of us about what really matters in life and in Nature. The consumer society that we live in has lulled us into a false sense of security and encouraged us to contract out to others what we should be doing ourselves. It meant in the process we became disempowered not being able in some cases to do simple things like change an electric plug or repair a bike puncture.
So during the lockdown, I have baked apple tarts, prepared and cooked vegetable soups, painted and given a new lease of life to old furnture and fittings, made celebration cards, fixed fences, cleaned up (not just in Terryland Forest Park but in my home!), and dug up and planted a new vegetable garden. I am doing the things that my wife Cepta does every day. I have become a multi-tasker -just like her!
Okay they may be not the best soups or tarts or cards- but I am trying!
Next week, I intend to be even more useful to family and society! For I will do some car mechanics, bake bread, sew, darn....This is a new me!!!

COVID-19: Growing Your Own Organic Food at Home

The COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity for us to reevaluate our economy, our relationship with people and with the rest of Nature. Hopefully if we learn the right lessons we can build a better future based on a circular economy using local resources as much as possible.
We can become more skillful, more respectful towards others, and more aware of biodiversity.
At present, many of us are learning to cook, to bake, to paint, to repair, to grow fruits and vegetables as well as to value the key things in life such as family, friends, the birds and the bees.
In order to help people during this crisis, as mentioned previously, I compiled last week an easy-to-follow guide on how to set up and maintain one's very own home organic food garden.
Check out https://bit.ly/39pTFWd

Yesterday I completed Phase 1 of my new extended vegetable garden. Over an extended weekend, I had dug up part of my back lawn; marked off out three sections for annual crop rotation; fertilised the soil; then planted seed potatoes, onion sets and lettuce; and finally surrounded the area with fencing (to keep the cats and dogs out).
Nothing went to waste. The top layer of grass turf that I took up was used in repairing the front lawn that had been badly damaged by our very energetic dog (he was trying to recreate a WW1 battlefield!); the stones from the soils were used to reinforce the base of some decking. The water I used for the plants comes from our rainwater harvesting barrel.
Tomorrow I will harvest the rhubarb that we already had in the back garden and use it to make a fruit tart. Good to see that the buds on the Apple trees are starting to open!

A Beginner's Guide to Home Gardening-Part 1

At a time when our abuse of the natural world has led to COVID-19 and the confinement of so many of us to our homes, it represents a unique opportunity to consider growing one's own food but in a way that is benign to the soil, air and water.
So to support this process and to help overcome the negativity of isolation and 'cabin fever' that can be a consequence of this 'lockdown' that we find ourselves unexpectedly in I have put together, as part of the Open Innovation Emergency Research Response Initiative of the Nature Response Unit at the Ryan Institute NUI Galway, a simple easy-to-follow "Beginners' Guide to Home Gardening". It contains information on preparing the ground, the tools needed for such an enterprise, the benefits of outdoor gardening and of growing food organically.
I selected three popular vegetables (potatoes, onions and lettuce) that require relatively low maintenance, are easy-to-grow and can be planted during the March/April period.
Using their professional in-house scientific expertise, the Ryan Institute's Nature Response Unit is rolling out a wonderful series of pioneering nature programmes designed to keep us all happy and active in the Great Outdoors.

Check out bit.ly/39msZ8J

 

Library for all ages set up in Eglinton Direct Provision Centre.

Supporting Community during the COVID-19 crisis

Thanks to the support of staff (well done Carole!), management (Patrick) and residents (thanks Adelina & Jihad in photo) we managed, after weeks of hard work, to convert a former nightclub counter bar into a library. What was once stocked with whiskeys, gins, vodkas, brandies and liqueurs is today populated with books catering for all ages. It is divided into sections for adult male and female, teenagers, children, parents with babies, education and ecology. We also have a myriad of boardgames, jigsaw puzzles, guitars and sewing machines. It is now a facility that will become an important resource to the residents during the coronavirus crisis and help overcome boredom whilst also acting as a centre for learning and entertainment.

 

Note: The ‘Library/Leabharlann’ image in the centre of the photo represents the large sign displayed in front of this new facility.