Creative Climate Action

Gleann a’ Phúca aims to raise awareness and promote active citizenship through a programme of creative offerings and activities in the park. Delving into the rich cultural and industrial heritage of the river valley the project invites participation in the (re)mapping of the Glen by acknowledging individual histories and relationships with the place. In the creation of new rituals which call forth its biodiversity and heritage, we seek ways to cultivate new habits in relation to the river and the health of its waters, from source to where it enters the Lee.

Reflecting on its industrial past, we engage in the present, and prepare for the future of the water that runs through the park.

Through a series of Sensory, creative, science-based and celebratory activities spread over one year, Ordinary Gifts intends to encourage participants to increase their sensitivity and perception, knowledge and understanding of the life of the river. The aim is that people will become advocates for the Glen River and our part in the water cycle, from rethinking what is discharged from our homes as grey water while becoming more aware of local sources of pollution in the river.

We also intend to look at the International movement for the rights of rivers and environmental personhood through the Universal Declaration of River Rights 2017, while also exploring the relationship we have to rivers in Ireland through the lens of mythology and folklore.

Through their mapping, drawing and storytelling workshops Spoon and Bloom is future looking, focussing on positive action, building on our intimate relationship with the topography of the park, its natural heritage and what it can and does mean in our lives.

At cross quarterly events, beginning with Samhain 2023, Spoon and Bloom will conduct excursions into the park, sharing memories and collecting stories  along the way, participants will co-create a living archive about their connections with the Glen.

Out of this archive Spoon and Bloom will create an animated map which reveals this multi-layered approach to the park.

Botanical Odyssey is a collaborative drawing remembering and imagining plantlife in the Glen. It was created by the participants in a workshop with artist, Julie Forrester and took place at the outset of Gleann a Phúca on 22 September – the day the Púca is said to ride into winter, spitting on the Blackberries, turning the fruit.
Since then we have had a year of odyssey and excursions into the park with projects Ordinary Gifts and Spoon & Bloom. We have been spellbound by a host of storytellers about ecology: naturalist Éanna Ní Lamhna, botanist Jo Goodyear, folklorist Jenny Butler, herbalist Eoin Marshall, each in turn has led us through the hidden valley. Birdwatch Ireland Cork introduced us to the particular concert of Glen Birdsong in the valley, The Friends of the Dripsey River brought us monsters magnified from the shallows, those tiny creatures that we examined with Water Officer, Catherine Seale and Scientist Trisha O’Brien are invertebrates that tell us and warn us about our water quality. Historian Gerard O’Brien brought us back to a time, growing up in the Glen, about the Gouldings Fertiliser and industry that supported livelihoods and left residues and about corncrakes and thorneens, now sadly missing from our waters. Elinor Rivers tuned us into the water showing we can all feel the pulse with hazel twitch or metal rod. In our culminating event Annie Mar and Aaron Ross have brought the stories together in their animation “Glen Folk” and Dervla Baker and Neil Quigley have created their short film River in homage to the Glen River. Ann Dalton brings forth the voices of women from the Glen and Helga Deasy performs with the river in a dance that celebrates the river as  as a source of life, healing and regeneration.
We have gained much from our river and it is time now to take more care of the waters that have brought us life and living, the Glen needs our help to ensure its future health, we urgently need to pay attention to what we put into our water from washing, flushing, cleaning: the water carries it all. The river is suffering and can no longer support the bio-diversity it once harboured. The river needs to run a course with healthy banks, we find that we have sealed the surface of its edges with cement and asphalt, encroaching on the river’s safe passage and causing floods when the rains come as they do more heavily now with climate change. We can build rain gardens to work with the flow of water, becoming part of the flow, becoming river – our rain gardens will absorb excess water from our homes and support biodiversity. We can stop using harmful chemicals in our cleaning fluids we can think before we wash and flush – where does it all go? We can pay attention to our drains become more curious about how they work and who cares for them we can own our place in the Water cycle. Our actions make a difference for better of for worse. Let’s make it better.

The Local Authority Water Programme for their ever present support and generous funding

Cork City Council Arts Office and Cork City Council Parks Executive

Thanks to Jools Gilson and UCC Creative for the Dance Artist Commission in collaboration with Gleann a Phúca, and partners Firkin Crane and  UCC Environmental Research Institute.

We have been generously supported in our programme by The Glen Sports and Resource Centre who have given us space and assistance with the administration of the project. Thanks to The Glen Community garden for collaborating on our Rain Garden Information Sessions and Planter Building Workshops.

Thanks to the Cork Rivers alliance Group, newly formed from an idea which began here in January 2024.

The Local Authority Water Programme for their ever present support and generous funding

Cork City Council Arts Office and Cork City Council Parks Executive

Thanks to Jools Gilson and UCC Creative for the Dance Artist Commission in collaboration with Gleann a Phúca, and partners Firkin Crane and  UCC Environmental Research Institute.

We have been generously supported in our programme by The Glen Sports and Resource Centre who have given us space and assistance with the administration of the project. Thanks to The Glen Community garden for collaborating on our Rain Garden Information Sessions and Planter Building Workshops.

Thanks to the Cork Rivers alliance Group, newly formed from an idea which began here in January 2024.

Thanks to the Artists and contributors: Éanna Ní Lamhna, Catherine Seale, Trisha O,Brien, Jenny Butler,  Jo Goodyear, Eoin Marshall, The Friends of the Dripsey Rivers, Gerard O’Brien, Elinor Rivers, Annie Mar, Aaron Ross, Ann Dalton, Dervla Baker, Helga Deasy, Sara Hernandez, Susan McManamon, and to Kim-Ling Morris and Maria Rolston on the production team and to all who generously shared their time with us.

Thanks to the Local Creative Youth Partnership and cork city Council for supporting our OUTREACH programmes for Young people., The Mayfield Youth Cafe, The Glen Youth Project, St Mark’s Boys National School, St Patrick’s Secondary School, St Killian’s Forest School