“What we sow here now today will bloom tomorrow…”
The beautiful voice and lyrics of singer songwriter Katie O’Connor opened the MOYA Festival on the Earthlings stage in the woodland at The Barna Way.
This reminds us of the importance of setting our intentions and vision for the future we want to B!
Then came the beautiful words of artist Jennie of High Luncheonette at Brilliant Ballybunion Goes Wild!! This was our first public event and we had a magical evening celebrating food and music in the heart of nature with our community collaborators and their guests.
We are delighted to work with the talented Lily Toomey as a Creative Food Collaborator with Brilliant Ballybunion. For the last few days Lily has prepared the most amazing plant based food using as much locally sourced ingredients as possible from The Barna Way, Leagh Farm and Manna Organic, Tralee
Not only have we been nourished by her food, but also inspired by her research into Irish bogs.
It was lovely to see all the connections and collaborations with Lily, Jennie Moran (High Luncheonette) and Katie O’Connor music, weaving the web of creative talents connected to our wonderful town Ballybunion.
Thanks to Bob, Mike, Joe, Gerry, Hugh, Natalia for all your amazing work behind the scenes to create the forest venue and the spaces for people to gather
Thanks to Creative Ireland for funding our project and events through the Creative Climate Action Fund
Join Rena Blake, Barry O’Donoghue & the blackbirds, pheasants, thrushes, finches & robins for a magical and musical extravaganza at 5am, 4th May. Experience the living aural landscape of the Dawn Chorus in the stunning surroundings of The Barna Way (V31YK68), an organic farm and native woodland just outside Ballybunion.
A Brilliant day today at The Barna Way creating land art/ a willow dome/bird hide with magical portholes! Lots of great teamwork and fun using all natural materials including willow and handmade flax rope…. A great team of willow warblers!
Lots of delicious local salads from Leagh Farm and soup and microgreens from Barna.
We spent the afternoon busy in the potting shed and polytunnels planting and transplanting baby plants.
Great news, we are delighted to collaborate with Badly Made Books on a beautiful Brilliant Ballybunion journal.
The journals will be used by the community collaborators and artist Lisa Fingleton over the next year and a half to document our Creative Climate Action journey with Creative Ireland. All printed on recycled paper
We had a brilliant day today at our first Wild About Life event with ecologist and team member Dr Joanne O Brien. We spent World Water Day – 22.03.24, literally immersed in nature and water, learning how to analyse river water quality. We were all amazed at the number of creatures living in water and what they can tell us about the quality of the water. We even got to listen to their activity underwater. We spent the afternoon in a living lab at The Barna Way. Thanks to Joanne for all the knowledge and skills sharing and to Rena for the great photos. We were reminded that drawing was very much a necessary part of a naturalist’s practice (pre photography to record nature) and it was great to see artist & collaborator Marta at work capturing the scene, along with lead artist and team member Lisa. We had another delicious lunch with organic salad from Manna Organic Store (Tralee) with freshly made soda bread and soup, again, thanks to Rena.
We were delighted to welcome our new Brilliant Ballybunion Community Collaborators to our first event at The Barna Way. It was great to get the opportunity to finally meet each other after all the planning and preparation. What a fantastic group with such a range of lived experiences, skills and passion for Ballybunion, this amazing place we call home.
We were treated to fantastic food, picked earlier in the day by chef Lily Toomey. A delicious Spring nettle soup with kale crisps! We walked the land and were just in time to see the beautiful red blossoms on the Elm trees. We made our way through the native woodland (now almost 4 years old and over our head in some parts) and back through the Ivy Grove and older trees on the Peace Path.
We tested out the new wellingtons in the mud, after weeks of rain before heading back for tea and coffee at the She-Bean. It was really heartwarming (despite the 8°C temperature and impending storm!) to hear everyone’s hopes and motivations for joining us on the Brilliant Ballybunion journey.
