After a 5 year interval the much anticipated reboot of the All Ireland Permaculture Gathering finally took off and some 200 people gathered at the Slieve Aughty Centre over the weekend of 24/25 August. It was brilliant to see many old friends again, and meet new ones. After some last minute panic about the weather not cooperating and turning it into a mud fest, the permaculture gods did smile on us, with just the odd shower not dampening the mood, and the sun shining on us for much of the time
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CELT and a group of local volunteers prepared the ground, but it was one of the most luxurious sites we ever had, with plenty of sheltered workshop spaces, ample camping space, accommodation options for those who didn’t fancy camping, an on-site restaurant and organic food shop and even horse riding for the kids. Many thanks to CELT for helping to make this event a success and to our hosts, the Slieve Aughty Centre for cheerfully putting up with us.
As usual, the gathering was a self-organising event, workshops were put up by participants and everybody chipped in with any jobs that needed doing from gathering firewood for the central fireplace, putting up and taking down structures, (wo)maning the welcome tent or offering to help with the kid’s programs. The firepit acted as a focal point for everybody to meet and mingle, music to be played and stories to be shared.
Workshops covered many aspects from how to build a compost heated shower, seed saving and sharing and Co-housing to no-dig forest gardening, growing mealworms at home and identity, sexuality and community to name but a few topics. It was hard to chose sometimes.
I am also very excited that we officially launched the All Ireland Permaculture Network (AIPN) at this year’s gathering! Rather than going for a too formal ‘Association’, we decided to go for a more informal entity. The vision is to advance the knowledge and practice of permaculture on the island of Ireland through sharing, networking and advocacy. The formation of a some kind of formal entity has become a necessity for the few members of the steering committee organising the annual gathering, to manage funds we are holding and improving of transparency, as well as spreading the workload of managing the website, social media and gatherings. The aim is for better communication and cooperation amongst permaculture practitioners throughout the island as well as reaching outwards.
A group of us are now working out the details of what shape the network will take, you’ll hear more in due course. In the meantime we have set up an e-mail address if you want to know more or even want to get involved: allirelandpermaculturenetwork@gmail.com.
Finally, we are now actively looking for a venue for 2025, so if you have a large site that can accommodate 70-100 tents and camper vans, or know of someone who does, please get in touch. It would be a shame if we loose the impetus and have to wait for another 5 years. Alternatively, you could offer a smaller local gathering, which we would happily support.
From the feedback we’ve had so far, the gathering was a success. The only slight downside was that the site was almost too big and people were a bit too thinly spread. I would like to extend a special thanks to America, who was the on-site volunteer coordinator and took most of the pictures above, as I was far too busy with other stuff to take pictures.