Previous Projects

Gorgeous afternoon on Saturday 30th October 2021leading a foraging session at Digby Bridge near Prosperous in Kildare, we walked and talked about plants and then we came back and cooked our finds by the banks of the canal, beautiful day! It’s been the kind of autumn that the leaves are still on and so are …

We have just managed to start our Transition year Programme as part of our Kildare LEADER funded programme at Zero Waste Community Garden Rathcoffey. We are running a 10-week gardening – Biodiversity - Living heritage and Zero Waste programme with a group of 14 TY’s from scoil Mhuire in Clane.

On a brisk, fresh, and sunny day at the start of December, the community came together to plant 250 trees at the Rathcoffey Zero Waste Community Garden.

I have just started teaching a series of seasonal sessions at the Rathcoffey Zero Waste Community garden for an adult group, made up of a mixture of gardeners involved in the garden itself and members of the wider community.

Finding new ways in a pandemic! We are adjusting to the use of the word zoom in our vocabulary very quickly in these days of the pandemic! Here we are attempting our very first what we are calling our Virtual Campfire Zoom hangout!

We’re so excited to be coming to Limerick to offer a deep-dive Introduction to Forest School for Teachers in the Early Years & Primary and Secondary School. Places limited and going fast. Come and learn what Forest School is and gain some skills and confidence to bring children outdoors.

This was my 5th year working as part of the décor team at the wonderful and magic little festival called Another Love Story. I have been working on the décor crew since this festival started and it has grown a little bit bigger but most definitely better as the years have progressed. We have an amazing set up now!

Another inspiring week working with 25 teachers in the Navan Education Centre, empowering them to have the confidence to take their children outside and also to leave wild areas, plant trees and grow food! The garlic flatbread, wild garden pesto and elderflower cordial was pretty yummy too! Couldn’t have done it without the epic Niamh …

This was my 10th year working at Body and Soul Festival. As always, we collaborated with the amazing Earth Spirit crew from Cork, and we set up and created the Healing Area in The Sanctuary at Body & Soul.

Lovely article in the Leinster Leader about our event for Biodiversity Week event at the IWA Clane last week! Check out our blog to see what we are getting up to! 

We have been having a wonderful time down in the woods of Maynooth University for the last 8 weeks, working with 3rd class from Gaelscoil Ui Fhiaich running a 10-week Forest School Programme. We have been building dens, putting up homemade swings, doing natural arts and crafts including nature journals, dream catchers, clay Easter eggs, …

Kildare Community Stories is a Facebook group run by Kildare County Council. They go out and visit community groups around Kildare to get a taste of what is going on for the citizens of the county.

We are very excited to be running the very forest summer teacher training course in Forest School through the auspices of the Kildare Education Centre. We applied and got permission to run this Teacher Summer Training course through the Kildare Education Centre.

This weekend I delivered 2 workshops on biodiversity in the school garden as part of SEED's sixth Annual School Garden Conference, which was held in St. Laurence's National School, Sallins, Co. Kildare, on Saturday 23rd March 2019.

We didn't win, but it was great to be there, having the chats about our project and attending some interesting sessions about the issues at hand!!

Amazing news for the new year, the Biodiversity Garden that I am involved with at the John Sullivan Resource Centre in Clane has been shortlisted for the ‘People Together for Biodiversity’ Awards, and has been awarded runner up in the Awards, after the completion of the first ever Biodiversity Conference held in Ireland in February …

Ciara and I ran our first-ever level 1 Forest School Training up in Rossmore Park, Co. Monaghan. We worked with a mixed bunch of adults, mainly from preschool backgrounds.

Members were involved in spending time in the biodiversity garden and recording the various species we found there especially wildflowers, bumblebees, and butterflies. The art class drew sketches of the wildflowers in the meadow and did studies of them in clay relief imprints.

Another wonderful week in the fields of Killyon Manor in Co. Meath. Our main creations this year were these giant lanterns which will replace the old ones that adorn the lighting that fame the lawn area and take you out into the field!

We ran a lovely day in the woods, working with groups over the course of the day, allowing the children to decide what they wanted to get involved with, allowing lots of free play and creativity. We had a carousel of activities on offer to the participants, and lots of freedom just to hang out and play in the woods.

Epic week 6 of our ten-week Heritage in Schools Forest School programme in Maynooth. We are in this gorgeous woodland corner on the grounds of the university, and one of the local primary schools has come to us for a 10-week Forest School Programme. This week there was lots of caretaking of worms, slugs, and …

We have been running a 10-week programme with a local boys and girls school that are local to merely park in Dublin, we have a gorgeous little corner of woods in a corner of the park, you would barely know we were in the city!

Myself and Erin created a Celtic pattern archway, a clustered giant willow lantern that hung from a tree, among other creations for this year’s Another Love Story. Here are the behind-the-scenes of the willow lanterns drying after being covered in tissue and PVA!

We held the Irish Forest School Association inaugural conference on May 20th and 21st at the Irish National Heritage Park in Wexford.

Great day hedge-laying at Mount Briscoe Organic Farm with my pal Erin Gonseth, and helping master hedge layer, Eoin Donnelly at work – it is an art unto itself!

I erected this dome and tunnel with 3rd and 4th class from St. Patricks NS in Skibbereen last year, what an amazing school garden project!

Building our giant willow screen for our lucky bees in the IWA Clane!!

The final session at the Kilcock Men’s Shed today… I think the lads have done an amazing job – here are a few snapshots of the project and a before and after shot, it’s quite a transformation!

It’s all about the willow this week – a gorgeous willow dome built by the 6th class of Rathfarnham Educate Together NS on Monday, willow fence at Ashgrove Community Garden on Tuesday and Willow archway at Kilcock Men’s shed today!

The crew and I at Ashgrove Estate in Derrinturn got creative in the quiet corner of the estate and erected 4 willow archways across the paths in the estate.

October 2013 I have concluded the last part of my training to be a Forest school leader, what a wonderful week in the woods with amazing trainers and the most epic of groups to be part of! I can’t wait to get my paperwork completed, run my pilot, and become a fully-fledged Forest school leader!

I got the chance to run a weeklong summer camp in Dublin Zoo this summer, we had a great week, pond dipping, sowing seeds, and exploring the zoo!

We have been continuing our horticulture classes at the Acre project, this year, a great group of people who have got stuck in and helped transform and plant up the very large veg beds that are onsite! While doing their ETB module too!

Kerry Earth Education Project, for whom I used to work with and still collaborate on projects, had an amazing week at the Bloom Garden Festival in the Phoenix Park, scooping a Gold Medal for its model school organic garden, 'The Living Classroom (Recycled) and Best in Engaging Spaces Category, champion nettles!