Press release
Discover Derrynane: Local Experts Share Knowledge as Exciting Event Line-Up announced
Published on
Last updated on
Published on
Last updated on
The historic home of one of Ireland’s greatest leaders will host a wonderful celebration of nature, biodiversity and history this coming weekend.
Discover Derrynane festival returns for the eighth time based around Derrynane National Park and coastline and Derrynane House and Gardens, ancestral home of Daniel O’Connell and now one of over 70 historic properties in the care of the Office of Public Works.
A rich programme celebrating the area’s history, beauty and biodiversity has been laid on beginning on Friday afternoon with a tour, led by our own James O’Shea, OPW foreman at Derrynane, of the plant collection in the gardens surrounding the house.
From that point until Sunday evening, across a series of events from music to the marine, to archaeology, a range of mostly locally-based contributors share their love and knowledge of the area.
Like Niall Hogan, the Derrynane Herbalist, who has been conducting medicinal plant walks mainly around the gardens and sand dune ecosystem for the past 11 years.
Niall, who will be leading a Wild Plant Medicinal Walk on Saturday and Sunday says,
“The dynamic and energy is always unique to each walk just as the plants vary through the seasons. Both the park and the locality as a whole have a wide variety of medicinal plants.
Many are common plants most consider weeds, like nettle, bramble, daisy, meadows, cleavers and dock. Others like eyebright, water mint and lady’s bedstraw are abundant on the sand dunes at various stages through the spring and summer.
Many of the trees of the surrounding woodlands also possess potent medicinal properties so through all four seasons there are plants of therapeutic value to discover.
It never ceases to amaze me the wonder people exhibit when they discover the potential benefits of plants they spend a lot of time trying to eradicate from their gardens”.
Patrick and Theresa Kavanagh who have been offering photography workshops in the area for 15 years, will be hosting an exhibition throughout the weekend.
They will also be leading workshops on the Friday and Saturday that cater for all levels of ability.
Patrick says
“The goal is to promote our natural history through photography,” The rewards can be truly amazing when you take that perfect image. We will be out and about on the day. The location speaks for itself - truly amazing for wildlife and landscapes and, of course, we will talk about astro photography, as the area is a dark sky reserve. We are very passionate about the area and our photography and the weekend is a fantastic way to promote that.”
One of the most high profile celebrations of Derrynane’s natural bounty in recent years came from Vincent Hyland’s ‘Wild Derrynane’ book which sold out in its first run. Happily for visitors to the festival a second print run is now available.
Vincent will be leading a Seashore Discovery Walk on Saturday and Sunday and people can get a flavour of what to expect by visiting https://www.derrynane.ie/seashoreapp and selecting ‘Take the Virtual Tour’
On the tour, people can expect to see coastal wildflowers including orchids, Natterjack toadlets, lizards (if it’s sunny), birds, including pipits, skylark, chough and gannets. Rockpool creatures including sea anemones and gobies and, possibly, dolphins and basking shark may also be encountered.
On the subject of marine dwellers, Sea Synergy founder Lucy Hunt says they are looking forward to Discover Derrynane where they will set up their Marine Creature Feature in the courtyard. People can come along and see what is on display at the stall and interact with the animals and learn about them.
“We will have rocky shore animals in a tank so crabs, starfish, prawns, anemones, sea snails that people can hold, and possibly some small fish,” says Lucy.
“We will also have whale and dolphin bones and skulls found on Kerry's beaches and lots of different types of sea shells and mermaid’s purses and also some fun Marine CSI games for kids to get involved in.”
Another intriguing activity is the forest bathing led on Saturday by local Yoga practitioner Louise Weizweig. For the uninitiated, forest bathing or, shinrin-yoku, is a term that emerged in Japan in the 1980s as a physiological and psychological exercise, essentially meaning taking in the forest atmosphere.
Louise will lead an outing that connects with the forest in Derrynane, absorbing all it has to offer through all the senses - sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste.
This is just a flavour of the programme on offer over the three days celebrating this beautiful corner of our country. Check out the full programme here