has it really been so long? Gleann a Phúca has taken over my world…here is a direct follow up from my last post from our day with Éanna where she suggested we hold the Dawn Chorus in the Glen.. it happened and here is a blog about it on the Gleann a’ Phúca website https://gleannaphuca.ie/dawn-chorus-in-the-glen/

Launch 22 September with Éanna Ní Lamhna

I brought some inks I made from brambles and oak galls foraged in the Glen, modified with vinegar, bread soda and iron

Using the Bramble and oak gall inks we drew images of things we thought we might find in the Glen. After our walk with Éanna we added details that we found on our venture into the Glen.

Additions included a feather worn on one side, a sparrow hawk, hunter spiders that fell around our ears from the tree shaken by Éanna for more see

www.gleannaphuca.ie

and

https://www.facebook.com/gleannaphuca

and

https://www.instagram.com/gleann_a_phuca/

www.gleannaphuca.ie

The Glen River runs the entirety of its course from its source in Banduff westwards through the NE side of Cork city where it joins The Bride at Blackpool and flows south to meet the Lee turning Eastwards to the Sea …

The Declaration establishes that all rivers shall possess, at minimum, the following fundamental rights:

(1) The right to flow

(2) The right to perform essential functions within its ecosystem

(3) The right to be free from pollution

(4) The right to feed and be fed by sustainable aquifers

(5) The right to native biodiversity

(6) The right to restoration

Find the petition here:

https://www.rightsofrivers.org/

https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOYVNdrM=/?share_link_id=167433114354174349

It has been some time and I’m edging my way back to the Glen rebuilding lost connections, connections that appear fragile on the surface but I find are still running deep.

We have had some heavy rain and wild weather, the canopy of the Glen is opening up I spend some time with a hawthorn in the under story,

listening in to the Alder Pool and

observing the self-organisied constellation of berry and nut in the water combed twigs of the tideline

2022 has been a year of further explorations in the Glen, coming out of my daily walking practice, logging and observations I invited other artists to join in with proposals for the park … thanks Mark Heffernann for this lovely documentation of the Gleann a’ Phúca exhibition of proposals for the Glen and thanks to to the artists who made them… we will see if we can make this happen

Delicate things survive the crossing over from March to April

…days later, 13 April in the morning sun steam rises from the charred ground

Gorse making drawings, feelings of sweep sweep arabesque charcoal and ash, loose and light in the surrounds I feel my breath in the intersection where the 3 stalks rise.

https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOYVNdrM=/?invite_link_id=290642845830

Bulrushes are called coigeal na mban sí as gaeilge… the spindle of the banshee … their dense heads are bursting open this spring and spinning off in all directions… down in the wind …

The Glen is full of rich pickings after the plunder of illegal March fellings and Annie cradles a Y branch

The French word for bulrush is quenouille, which also translates as distaff – the twin tool of the spindle … distaff being the term for the maternal line of the family and also the woman’s realm (of work)…

Distaff, a device used in hand spinning in which individual fibres are drawn out of a mass of prepared fibres held on a stick (the distaff), twisted together to form a continuous strand, and wound on a second stick (the spindle).