Uisce

Buile agus Eagna na Sionainne

Council Project, Uisce

Fáilte. Be welcome to a family-friendly day of talks and activities on Sat 20th May 2023 on one of the mighty aquifer lakes that feeds the Shannon. Meet the communities of people and organisations who are the stewards and guardians actively working towards the preservation of our land. This will be a fun-filled one day family event, with activities and information providing something for everyone. We are facilitating a safe space for the difficult conversation of what rights of the Shannon could look like, or mean.

Organiser: Shannon Rights Alliance

Location: Doon Shore Amenity, Tawnytaskin, Co. Roscommon (on the western shore of Lough Key)

Date: Part of National Biodiversity Week on Sat 20th May 2023

Scheduled Events:

  • 9:45: Opening of the event
  • 10:30: Exploring aquatic life, pond dipping with Kate NcNutt (child-friendly).
  • 11:30: A storytelling with Chris Thompson: Stories in the Landscape.
  • Noon: Craic agus ceoil
  • 12:30: Talk on the River Shannon by Jack O’Sullivan: “Power, Threats and Management”.
  • 13:30: “Soul sounds of the Shannon” with Anne-Marie Hynes and a break for food.
  • 14:30: Talk by Daniel Monaghan: An ecological journey through environmentally sensitive landscapes and an insight into gold mining in Tyrone.
  • 15:45: Storytelling with John Willmott: Fire on water and the hawthorn.
  • 17:00: Celtic Kirtan with Eileen Bray
  • End of event and Open conversation around the central fire about rights of the Shannon.

Activities throughout the day:

  • Meet some of the great projects active in protecting and celebrating our natural heritage.
  • Central fire
  • Traditional music and harp
  • Reflexology
  • Hair braiding
  • Face painting
  • Story telling
  • Willow weaving
  • Children’s craft workshop
  • Moss balls craft

We operate on a zero waste philosophy and encourage self-sufficiency by event attendees.

What to bring:

  • Bring water from your own local well (the central fire will have a kettle on the go all day for herbal teas)
  • Picnic blanket or campchair.
  • Picnic food for yourself (there will also be soup and bread to share).
  • Your own cup, bowl and eating utensils.

This is a free event, although donations of support on the day will be welcome.

To ensure this is a safe and family-friendly event, this will be an alcohol and drug-free space. Children must be always accompanied by a responsible adult.

Shannon Rights Alliance is a newly formed alliance of groups with an interest in protecting the Shannon and working towards Rights of Nature for the River. We are delighted to invite your group to host a table at our launch event as part of National Biodiversity Week on Sat 20th May 2023 at Doon Shore Amenity.

The day will include talks, stories and music with the theme of biodiversity and protection of the River Shannon. Please find attached a schedule for the day. Entry is free as the event is sponsored by the Irish Environmental Network and Zero Waste Alliance Ireland. We are expecting to attract good numbers to the area and we thought it might be beneficial to you and interesting for visitors if your group wanted to host a table with information about what you do for people who visit.

We are hoping to work together with groups all along the River Shannon to find our common interests and ways to come together to ensure the River continues to be the inspiring life-giving entity that it has been for us and previous generations, and we hope will be for long into the future. As well as hosting a table, we would love to talk with your group about how we might work together towards Rights for the Shannon.

On the day arrival and set up is at 0930 – please be as self-sufficient as possible and bring your own chairs, tables, water and food.

Save The Boyne- River Clean up- 20/02/22

Uisce

Is Míse Boann

>> This is part of our Save the Boyne campaign.

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The river clean-up along the Boyne was in response to the threat to the Boyne River by Dawn Meats. They are proposing to run a 7km pipeline discharging 400,000lt a day of treated waste into the river. It was held on the 20th of March 2022 and despite having 3 weeks to organise, it was a great success. 

This was a very process-led project. A call-out was put through the Facebook page Mná na Uisce to discuss how we as a community could respond. In the original dreaming on the zoom call, 9 women were in attendance.

It was decided that connecting people to the mythology of the river could inspire them to the preservation of the ecology. A river clean-up was proposed and originally decided for the 13th of March. Two teams formed, one as a creative direction to create a 3-minute film with a Call to Action for people to submit their objections by April 7th. A larger film telling the story of Boann was proposed. This team consisted of Saor de Paor, All is Well, Women of the Water, Earthy Soul Mates, Sound Your Soul, EcoStorytales, and Candlelit tales

The other team was the organisation team, this consisted of Singing the Land, Save the Boyne, Women of the Water, Jealue, Youth friends of the Earth, All is Well. They focused on bringing awareness to the different governmental organisations that would have an interest in stopping the pipeline. A website savetheboyne.org was created by Women of the Water. A call for filmmakers was created by Jealue and All is Well.  This was circulated widely. A flyer was created by YFOE and All is Well for materials to hand out on the day. There were also press releases and radio interviews with LMFM. Each project involved widely shared a post about the day over their social media platform. Twitter, Instagram and Facebook were employed. If our followings were combined, we potentially reached 24,205 people.

Contact with the local Guards and the County Council was established with favourable responses. The council ensured the collection of the collected rubbish on Tuesday. There was positive outreach with the community wardens and the Environmental officer Bernadine.

 Of the 9 on the original call, 6 women arrived on the day. The absence of the other three was down to illness and distance.

On the day, there were many 12 counties represented, Dublin, Wexford, Louth, Westmeath, Meath, Sligo, Clare, Galway, Limerick, Kerry, Cork. Upon arrival at the Ramparts, it was discovered that another community group had held a river clean-up the week before and there was very little rubbish. We revised our strategy and decided to identify the rubbish along the Boyne and employ vehicles to convoy to these sites.

There were 11 Fairy Council member organisations who attended. The members of the FCOI in attendance on the day were Wild Irish Retreats, Wolf Academy, Gaelic Woodland Project, Emily Dawson, All is Well, Women of the Water, Young Friends of the Earth, Jealue, Save the Boyne. Earthy Soul Mates, and EcoStoryTales.

Notable participants were James Cogan, Pip Advisor Ireland, Shannon Soul Sounds, JuliAnne Hennelly, Deirdre Wadding, John Anthony McGowen, Martin O Keefe, Fiachra, Sam and Padraic

The main camp was held in the Ramparts, Navan. The fire circle was held by the women, while a team of eager volunteers filled 3 cars and worked in rotation. 

There were 15 in the main clean-up crew with a flow of people who arrived during the day at the Ramparts. The main cleaning crew had shared their geo-location so they could be found along the river. Their first stop was where the pipeline is proposed to be placed, The Cotton mills. Ironically, This was the site of the most amount of rubbish. There were car batteries, mattresses, and about 30 bags of rubbish collected.

The next Location was along the Red River studio, where they removed shopping trollies and another 6 bags of rubbish. At the main camp in the Ramparts, there were three bags of rubbish

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We had the kind hospitality of Marion from the Red river Studio. She was able to accommodate with a dorm and a private room for the family in attendance. There was use of a kitchen and bathroom facilities. In exchange, we tidied her yard and ensured the rubbish was removed from her section of the Boyne.

In total 10.9km of the River Boyne was cleaned in a six-hour period. After the clean it was noticeable in the improvement in the ecology of the water. Wildlife including otters, herons, mallards, and fish were seen returning to the area.

Coinciding there was the film made over a two day period. Women of the water filled the role of Boann with lyrical voices of Julie-Anne and Shannon Soul Sounds. Saor DePaor provided the poetry behind. These were filmed in each of the collection locations the Ramparts and the Red River Yoga Studio.

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Save the Boyne

Uisce

Is Míse Boann

A planning application for a 7.2 km pipeline to discharge 400,000 litres of treated wastewater into the Boyne River is in its next round of review.

Please help with our campaign by writing to your TD / MEP / An Bord Pleanála. Here are our objections:

Additional notes:

Find out more

SeaSquared

Uisce

We’re Cillian and Colm, the SeaSquared duo. Born in the same year, in the same hospital, on the same day, this friendship goes way back. March 2020 put a halt to our busy lives in London and Dublin. Remote working brought us back home to West Cork. Here, our eyes were opened, we saw West Cork in a way we had never seen before. The rugged landscape, the intricate coastline, bays, inlets, harbours. The roar of the surf and the beauty, how had it taken us so long to appreciate the surroundings in which we grew up? And an even bigger question that got us talking, how are we going to play our part to protect this beauty, this planet? ​

A combination of passion for design & a love for clothing led us on this exciting adventure. 

Our vision is not only to build a sustainable clothing brand but to build a community focused around sustainable living. From areas such as cleaning the ocean plastic, to reducing packaging waste, we want to play our part in improving the world we live in and have fun whilst doing it.

Join us today to make a change, one square at a time!

Our products are made in small batches from 100%  organic, vegan materials and embroidered here in West Cork. You can rest assured that we take full responsibility for your product and aim to be fully transparent in our design and production processes.

Celestial Aquatics

Uisce

Celestial Aquatics is a collaboration between Ruth Le Gear and Graham Reid.

I make essences from water. I have collected icebergs in the Arctic from a tall ship, wandered the desert of New Mexico and stood on the tip of the Cape of Good Hope. In these places and where ever I am, my intention is always to try to communicate with the water that is there, this most beautiful life-giving force of nature. Each body of water is totally unique. It has it’s own physical and spiritual history, it’s own mineral content, and it’s own unique vibration that it imparts on living beings that it encounters. If you’ve ever had a drink from a crystal clear mountain stream, and one from an ancient well or a swim in the sea, you will know that all water is not the same.

I am an artist and a healer and my life’s work is to understand and communicate with water. I love it in all its layers, the tiny micro-organisms that live in one drop, the huge oceans and ocean creatures, lakes. rivers, clouds, mist, rain, sleet, hale, icebergs, and glaciers. I live on the North West coast of Ireland and it rains here a lot, mostly pure North Atlantic water, swept up in the storms above Greenland and Iceland.

In my studio, I study the water samples that I’ve collected on my travels. And slowly, the essence of the water is unraveled.

When making an essence I take a small amount of the water, which holds all of its history and potential, and make the essence by taking a drop of the water and adding it to 100 drops of pure rainwater. It is how the energetics of the place can be felt, and come forth. Turning the water into an essence makes it capable of treating the emotional, mental physical, and spiritual levels. I have chosen to do it this way not only for its energetic properties but also because the Earth’s water and natural environment are so precious.

Then my partner, glassblower Graham Reid blows a glass vessel to hold the water essence which is sealed inside the glass, so they can be worn as wearable waters. Graham Reid grew up in South Africa. He studied architecture at Massachusetts College of Art, he took glassblowing as an elective and subsequently switched to sculptural glass. After returning to his ancestral roots in Ireland, he designed and built Knockbeg Glass Studios where he taught and blew glass under the name Glóine Eíreann. He has a flameworking and metal studio at home in Sligo. His sculptural work is primarily concerned with expressing and manifesting the universal forces that surround us but are often invisible.

Kingdom Water

Uisce

Michelle Keane is a Co Kerry-based interior designer, entrepreneur and public speaker. She was born in Knocknagoshel, in northeast Kerry, and lives a mile from where she was born with her husband Keith and two children Luke & Holly. She studied fashion and textile design and was a finalist in the Smirnoff Young Designer of the Year Award 1994, Trinity College. She was awarded a post graduate scholarship from the Scottish College of Textiles in Galashiels. She founded Mibeau Interiors in 2000, and, thanks to her relentless passion for design and a keen eye for colour, has become a celebrated name in the interior design industry. She is passionate about making her design ethos widely accessible, and lectures part-time in interior design. In 2019, Michelle launched a hand-painted spiritual art collection inspired by her visions and spiritual experiences. In 2019 she discovered seven natural spring waters on her land and has been on a journey of discovery ever since.

Cormac’s Coast

Uisce

Private guided walking tours along Ireland’s Atlantic coast: Cliffs of Moher, Burren, Slieve League. Zoology, Marine Biology, Geology, Botany & Local history

Hello there. My name is Cormac McGinley and here’s a little background information about me and what I do. 

I grew up in the small fishing and farming community of Teelin, County Donegal on Irelands North West Atlantic coast, under the shadow of Slieve League – some of Europes highest sea cliffs. Ours was a fishing family in Donegal. My father’s family were from small uninhabited islands off the Atlantic coast and my mother was reared in Derry.

I studied Zoology, Marine Biology, some geology and paeleontology at Aberdeen University Scotland. I also traveled extensively and still do any chance I get.

I spent 5 weeks at Gerald Durrell’s world famous Jersey Zoo studying endangerd animals and their reintroduction.

• 11 years as a Ranger at the Cliffs of Moher Visitor Centre.

• Worked as the education officer at the cliffs of moher visitor centre, setting up their education and conservation programmes and providing information on flora and fauna in their award winning exhibition area.

• Was responsible for most of their specialist tours (everything from university groups to v.i.p.s and royalty), training up staff at the visitor centre on flora, fauna and geology for delivering tours and answering guests questions.

• Was involved in assisting with the set up of the “Burren and Cliffs of Moher UNESCO Geopark.

I have extensive touring experience and specialise in delivering high level content on Fauna, Flora, Geology and History and Heritage of the Cliffs of Moher and Burren area.

Ireland Sacred Water

Uisce

Keri Sherlock

In 2015 Keri designed a collection of sacred vessels inspired by her love, interest and fascination with the use of sacred water throughout Ireland’s history. There are hundreds of holy wells scattered throughout Ireland’s landscape, regularly maintained and still used by locals. The water rituals and the holy sites are something to behold and a visit would be encouraged to all. It is a thrilling adventure in locating and finding the Holy Wells, similar to a treasure hunt there are stories of legend and hidden trinkets to be discovered.Keri introduced a number of beautifully handmade water containers to contain collected sacred Irish water. These charming keepsake items make the perfect gift, a token of spiritual Ireland. The handmade clay bottles are glazed beautifully. If requested they can be filled with sacred water from a Holy Well in Ireland or blessed water from a sacred site. By definition sacred water is not for sale, the water is a gift adding a special value to the items.“Holy Wells” and sacred waters in Ireland hold a unique role as a symbol of the Irish culture and a connection with the natural environment. The holy well tradition is believed to date back to the pre-Christian era when they had deities and performed ceremonies at the springs. The well water itself is extremely important. Particular minerals and elements have been found at a number of sites, due to the water coming up from deep underground, springing from the earth in its purest form. The spring waters of Ireland have always been and are still being collected and used for blessings, protection and cure.Each ceramic bottles (9cm x 6cm ) is packaged beautifully and would make a lovely token, souvenir or gift. Accompanying the items is a small information leaflet describing the sacred site and the background to this Irish tradition.

Ripple Effect Ireland

Uisce

Highlighting how seaswimming can have a positive impact on many aspects of your life including #wellbeing

The Ripple Effect Ireland was set up on 2021 with the intention of spreading the good word about sea swimming and its benefits. We wanted to highlight that sea swimming not only impacts the person swimming but also how it can massively benefit other areas of their lives. Everyone has their own thing they take from sea swimming and if our page can inspire even just one person to take the plunge then the ripple effect of that spreads throughout. Sea swimming is a brilliant community of like minded people.