More than six months since the Dinnseanchas project participants first met as a group in Co. Kerry in April 2024, the work of the project is really beginning to ripen. Our artists are embedded in their communities, where they have worked to build connection, listen, learn, and reflect on how existing and past knowledge of place can support upland communities in the west of Ireland to forge a new path for themselves. The group of artists have become a close and supportive network for each other along with the wider team. There are numerous recurring themes across all six communities including a sense of loss, a lack of opportunity for people to gather in the ways that they used to, a desire to strengthen their communities and share their knowledge, and, of course, sheep and bogs!

For many of our Dinnseanchas communities, summer and early autumn are busy times. They rely on tourism and have to make the most of a short and frantic season. This is of course followed by farming jobs that accompany a changing season, the return to school, and then settling into the routines of winter. However, this doesn’t mean that communities can’t gather. Our team celebrated the August bank holiday by joining the community of Lyreacrompane for ‘Tea in the Bog’ as part of this year’s Dan Paddy Andy Festival - a celebration of community, heritage. Walking through cutover bog, conifer plantation, and past wind turbines highlights how dramatically land use, working patterns and economic priorities have changed in the past century.

In late summer the calendar also fills up with agricultural fairs and shows. These events provide an opportunity for us to meet the farmers on their own ground, to gain insight into the world of agriculture for those of us who aren’t from a farming background, and to spark up conversations that mightn’t happen elsewhere.

Two Dinnseanchas artists ran workshops at agricultural shows in their areas in August - Zoë Rush held a mapping workshop at the Castlegregory show during the bank holiday weekend and Róisín de Buitléar brought her 'farm gate' to the Clonmany show in Donegal the following week. Zoë asked members of the community to answer various questions about their local mountains and gathered responses on a map of the Corca Dhuibhne peninsula. Róisín had specially commissioned a traditional red farm gate that could stand freely at the Clonmany show to provide a focal point where people could gather, lean and chat. Clonmany is one of Ireland's oldest festivals and focusses on sheep shearing and sheep dog trials. This year it also featured stands from many environmental and conservation projects. Themes that arose during conversations around the farm gate included the lack of supports for upland farming, the future of framing in the uplands, wool and its low economic value, land abandonment, traditions, changing practices, biodiversity, tourism, and sustainability, including the sustainability of the event itself.

*Leaning in for a chat at Clonmany. Photo: Grace Wells.*

We also brought the gate to the Leenane sheep fair in September. There, it was accompanied by some gorgeous tunes that attracted a local dance legend. Aindrias also joined us in Leenane to chat to some of the attendees about their feelings related to climate change and the future of their communities and ways of life.

One man remarked as he rested his arm on the gate that ‘There isn’t enough of this anymore - the time to just stand and chat.’ We were also blown away by the insights of some of the people we spoke to. Far from being resistant to change, one woman noted that every generation changes. ‘Sure it would be strange if children wanted to be exactly like their parents!’, she said while acknowledging that this wasn’t always comfortable, it was the way of life. The team also gained insights into the world of hill sheep farming and the culture that surrounds it. There is such clear pride in this community, respect for farmers who have built up good flocks, and a whole wealth of knowledge and heritage that has developed over the generations since sheep farming became so widespread in the west of Ireland. While our artists quickly realised that nothing at an ag fair can compete with the animals and equipment on show, these events provided opportunities to meet members of the community and to explore some of the recurring themes of the project.

*Some fine black faced sheep on display at the Leenane Sheep Fair.*

On Culture Night, Peadar-Tom launched the audio visual exhibition “Fáistineach” (future tense / prophecy) along with members of the collective Gliogar and graphic designer Meadhbh O’Leary Fitzpatrick at the Maam Community Centre. The exhibition gave an abstract perspective on the negative effects of economic and colonial influences on the uplands in one room but also immersed people in the positives of these areas and their potential to lead in areas such as climate change, biodiversity and community in the other room. On the night there was a wonderful gig by Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, Ultan O’Brien, Saileog Ní Cheannabháin and Ceoltóirí Óga Dhúiche Sheoigheach. The event was also supported by Galway Culture Company, Ealaín na Gaeltachta and Coiste Forbartha an Mháma.

*Music and an immersive exhibition on Culture Night in Maam. Photo: João Tudella*

Lucy Taylor spoke about Dinnseanchas at the annual conference of the National Landscape Forum in Tralee in September. Her talk focussed on the intention of Dinnseanchas to listen, ask, and support rather than just to present a new future vision to a community and expecting change to happen smoothly. She also spoke about a deep mapping project that is funded separately but being run by Hometree under the umbrella of Dinnseanchas. The intention of this deep mapping is to gather local knowledge relevant to the Hometree sites in Galway and Sligo and to incorporate the values of the local community into plans for these sites. We hope that this is good practice and a move away from the idea that a landowner can do whatever they want on their land without consideration for neighbouring land uses, heritage, locally important sites or the many layers of knowledge that a community can hold.

*Gathering stories, impressions and perceptions of the uplands of Corca Dhuibhne during the Castlegregory Agricultural Show. The map and photographs are the work of Zoë Rush.*

Early in October, Róisín de Buitlear returned to Donegal for a packed week of workshops, farm visits, and community engagement around Gartan, Glenveagh and Church Hill. She collaborated with a local art teacher, local landowner John Duffy, and the national park to run a workshop exploring temperate rainforests and to create an installation that highlighted the urgent need for action. The installation, a photograph of which is the header for this blog, was created from sheep fencing and wool to spell out the words ‘now’ and ‘anois’ clearly against the landscape. The wool, largely seen as a waste product of sheep farming, was given to her by farmers she had met at Clonmany. She also facilitated a gathering of local weavers in Ardara. This was the culmination of much time spent networking, building connections with and between members of the community, planning and collaboration. She was closely supported by writer-in-residence, Grace Wells, during this week.

Léila Worth, a local Donegal weaver with John Duffy and Laura McGoran of Future Oak Farm working to create the installation in the landscape dreamed up by Róisín de Buitléar in September. Photo: Grace Wells.

Within the project, all of the artists continue to engage and deepen their understanding of the communities and issues that are the focus of the project. We meet regularly on video calls and there is a strong sense of exchange and mutual support. A recent call that Róisín and Grace facilitated is evidence of this - the artists met to discuss their processes and to share how they are addressing certain aspects of the project. Some of the artists are also already exploring ways to work further within their communities beyond the lifetime and the capacity of the current Dinnseanchas project.

More project events and outputs will emerge in the coming months. It is important for us within the project to remember that we are investigating the deep layers of place, exploring stories and local lore, and looking backwards only as a step towards envisioning a future for Ireland’s uplands. We cannot go backwards and we do not want to dwell in a world of nostalgia or of fetishising the past. However, there are certainly ways of thinking, seeing, and knowing that have been lost in recent decades that may help us to navigate the flux that we are currently experiencing. There is value in seeing ourselves as part of a deeper story and acknowledging those that went before us in developing a future for those who will follow. Our focus is to see ourselves within a continuum and to open our minds to what we can learn from the past, what we can bring forward from the present, and what may need to change as we move into a new future.

*Words that describe impressions of the woodland in Glenveagh National Park from a workshop lead by Róisín de Buitlear and Seán Ó Gaoithín. Photo: Grace Wells.*

Keep an eye on the Hometree socials for updates over the winter. If you’d like to get in touch with the project, email Lucy at lucy@hometree.ie. We’d love to hear from you, especially if you’re in one of the communities where we have a resident artist. Very loosely, these are the Borlin and Coumhola Valleys on the Beara Peninsula, the Iveragh peninsula in south Kerry, the Brandon area of Corca Dhuibhne, Lyracrompane in north Kerry, Maam and northern Connemara, and Glenveigh in Donegal.

Dinnseanchas is a recipient of the Creative Climate Action fund, an initiative from the Creative Ireland Programme. It is funded by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media in collaboration with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. The fund supports creative, cultural and artistic projects that build awareness around climate change and empower citizens to make meaningful behavioural transformations. For more on Creative Climate Actions, see here.

Dinnseanchas Autumn Update

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