The B Team
Brilliant Ballybunion is coordinated by Grainne Toomey from Ballybunion Community Forum in partnership with The Barna Way, Lisa Fingleton (Artist), Rena Blake (Photographer/Grower), Dr Joanne O Brien (Ecologist) and Dr Clare Watson (Reflective Learning Evaluator).
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Ballybunion Community Forum
Ballybunion Community Forum is an elected umbrella body for all groups in the town and an incorporated limited company. The forum have a specific remit in relation to the promotion of Ballybunion community and tourism. They are responsible for managing numerous large scale community events, the tourist office, the MOYA festival as well as supporting many grant applications, marketing plans and studies.
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The Barna Way
The Barna Way is a nineteen acre organic farm and native woodland on the west coast of Ireland in Ballybunion. The Barna Way engages with the diverse community groups through social farming and live food and cultural events, while protecting habitats for wildlife. This seventeen year project is propelled by an accelerated sense of urgency around food insecurity, climate crisis, biodiversity loss and forced migration.
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The Community Collaborators
The Community Collaborators are 14 people from or living in Ballybunion who have agreed to take a 2 year creative journey with the B Team to learn about local biodiversity and grow their own food. A fantastic group with such a range of lived experiences, skills and passion for Ballybunion, this amazing place we call home. It is really heartwarming to hear everyone’s hopes and motivations for joining us on the Brilliant Ballybunion journey.
Our Team
![Grainnne Toomey_Brilliant Ballybunion_Dominick Walsh_2023](https://brilliantballybunion.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Copy-of-Grainnne-Toomey_Brilliant-Ballybunion_Dominick-Walsh_2023-scaled.jpg)
Gráinne Toomey
As a photographer, she is passionate about both creative expression and the beauty of the natural world. Gráinne is secretary of Ballybunion Community Forum. She is an advocate for wellbeing and mindfulness. In 2017 Gráinne co-founded the very successful MOYA festival (up to 5000 visitors) which takes place in Ballybunion on the May Bank Holiday every year. MOYA stands for Meditation, Ocean, Yoga & Art. It is a festival of wellness and nature. It has helped to establish Ballybunion as a place of solace, fun, kindness and freedom of expression on the Wild Atlantic Way.
![Copy of Lisa Fingleton _Brilliant Ballybunion_Dominick Walsh_2023](https://brilliantballybunion.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Copy-of-Lisa-Fingleton-_Brilliant-Ballybunion_Dominick-Walsh_2023-scaled.jpg)
Lisa Fingleton
Lisa Fingleton is an artist, filmmaker, writer and grower who has spent over twenty years cultivating deep-rooted connections between art, food and farming. Her projects incorporate socially engaged, collaborative and performative process; participatory moving image; large scale drawing installations; as well as creative and autobiographical writing.
Grounded on a nineteen acre organic farm and native woodland on the west coast of Ireland, she and her partner run a project called The Barna Way. Lisa was the embedded artist with A Creative Imagining, one of 15 pilot projects funded by the Creative Climate Action Fund with the Dingle Hub, Green Arts Initiative and the Marei Centre. Together they supported farmers on the Dingle Penninsula to creatively look at ways in which they can respond to climate change.
In 2022 Lisa worked with Creative Ireland and the OPW at the National Ploughing Championship to produce a 100 foot Interactive drawing called A Creative Climate Wall. This drawing responded live to the solutions for climate change offered by farmers. The drawing was installed at IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) for the Earth Rising Festival.
![Copy of Rena Blake Photographer_Brilliant Ballybunion_Dominick Walsh_2023](https://brilliantballybunion.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Copy-of-Rena-Blake-Photographer_Brilliant-Ballybunion_Dominick-Walsh_2023-scaled.jpg)
Rena Blake
She also helped establish the very successful Kerry Eco-Social Farming Biodiversity EIP-Agri project which supported 26 social farms to carry out practical biodiversity and climate actions on their farms during 2022 (biodiversity ponds, native hedgerows, bird boxes, native woodlands etc)
![Clare Watson](https://brilliantballybunion.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Clare-Watson.jpg)
Dr Clare Watson
Clare was brought up on a small organic farm outside Cork city. She has a social work background and over the years has worked on many community-based social and environmental projects across Ireland. While experimenting with sustainable living in West Cork, Clare published an online blog (2013), looking at the influence of human psychology and behaviour on our reaction to climate change. This led to PhD research in MaREI/UCC on how to engage communities in climate action.
Between 2018 and April 2023, Clare led the MaREI engaged research team in Dingle Peninsula 2030, supporting the sustainable transition on the peninsula. She established a process of reflective learning within the partnership and co-created a series of learning briefs (including three for the 2022 Dingle Peninsula Creative Imagining project). Clare now works on a freelance basis and is leading a process of reflective learning and evaluation within Brilliant Ballybunion – tracking the benefits, challenges, experiences, learnings and achievements of those involved.
![JOB BRILLIANT BALLYBUNION](https://brilliantballybunion.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/JOB-BRILLIANT-BALLYBUNION.png)
Dr Joanne O Brien
Joanne is a lecturer and researcher at the Atlantic Technological university (ATU) on the Applied Freshwater and Marine Biology degree, as well as the Conservation Behaviour and IMBRSea MSc programmes. Since 2004, she has carried out numerous offshore and inshore marine mammal visual and acoustic surveys onboard the state research vessels. She was work-package leader on the PReCAST project, responsible for Static and Passive acoustic monitoring. She was PI on an EPA funded project assessing Ocean Noise in Irish waters 2011-2013, ObSERVE Acoustic project (2015-2018), SeaMonitor (2019-2023), and is currently PI on Corncrake LIFE (2021-2025) and STRAITS (2023-2027). Her research interests are marine mammals, bioacoustics, effects of anthropogenic noise, soundscapes and habitat modelling but is also actively involved in acoustic research across a range of freshwater and terrestrial species.