Stories from the Blackwater Catchment is A Creative Communities project which brings together Elders of Cluain Dara day care centre and Young people from the neighbouring school, Coláiste an Chraoibhín. Participants have been sharing stories and questions about the river Blackwater and what it means to live within its catchment. I have been working with the groups since Autumn 2024, stirring up river relations, co-creating and collecting imagery that has been conjured up by this engagement, and I will be bringing this collection to Fermoy library for the Bealtaine Festival, celebrating Creativity as we Age
John Joe has spent his life fly fishing on the rivers of North Cork, The Funshion, The Araglin and the Blackwater and a special townland, Mount Rivers where they meet.
More about this project in the link below to my blog 🙂
Perspectives from The Elders of the Blackwater Catchment is project is the most recent in a long series of interest and engagment in arts and health contexts.
Ohter projects include:
ROAM
ROAM is a project that aims to address loss and grief in communities of Cork City’s North Side since the pandemic. I was one of one of seven artists selected for special training in advance of the development and delivery of the programme in schools and community groups.
The project was developed by Cork City Council and the Irish Hospice Foundation through the Creative Ireland Programme (2025)
Please see my blog about Roam and the official website Roam Cork
Make or Break
Since its inauguration in 2024 I have been leading creative health and wellbing programmes in a variety of work places across county Cork.
Make or Break aims to foster wellbeing and collaboration within workplaces by making space for creative thinking, enhancing team dynamics, encouraging innovation, and supporting wellbeing through the cultivation of a positive workplace environment.
I have a long interest in arts and and health and spent some formative years as one of the inaugural arts workers serving with Cork Community Art Link. I held residencies delivering creative programmes with with Our Lady’s Hospital, St. Stephen’s Hosptal, Sarsfield Court, Greenville House residential care and day centre for adults with autism, St. Columba’s School for the Deaf and Hearing imparied, The National Council for the Blind, COPE foundation, with young women at Bruac and more.
Arts For All celebrating and promoting inclusion diversity and equality in the arts (2017-20)
Arts and Minds Crawford Art Gallery/HSE (2006-16)
Bealtaine and The Thursday Club Gallery Programmes for arts engagment with elders at the Crawford Art Gallery (2006-2020). The Crawford Gallery’s programme for the annual Bealtaine Festival evolved into The Thursday Club which operated as a lively creative meeting point for elders across the year.
Music Alive Fuse Residency an arts inclusion project with elders in day care centres (2014-16)
Art Reach Arts inclusion Residency with The National Training and Development Institute (1997)
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