Picnic Sunday in Terryland Forest Park

As part of the Galway Climate Festival 2026, a revival of what was once a strong family tradition in Ireland will take place at Terryland Forest Park on Sunday June 21st.

Going to a park on a Sunday during the summer with a large blanket and food basket packed with sandwiches, buns and soft drinks was once a regular part of Irish family life until the early 1970s.
We want to revive that tradition.
Recently the community in Shantalla held such an event in their local park and it was part of the Terryland Forest Park calendar during its early years.

To encourage the public to take part, volunteers will also host origami, crafts, paint, chalk and movement workshops, poetry readings, set up a children’s library, provide old style wooden games as well as guided walks (‘Talks & Trails)’ along the lovely network of pathways through the woods that were recently developed by Galway City Council.

We are asking for people of all ages to join us on this Sunday from 1pm to 4pm in the meadows and woods of the forest park.

Family groups are asked if possible to bring along a blanket, non-alcoholic drinks and picnic foods.

Entrance is at the park gate at the Headford Road-Quincentenary Bridge Road Junction beside Galway Retail Park. https://lnkd.in/dqb_qW4Y
To register, go to https://lnkd.in/d6rsNu2c

Finally, a big thank you to Tiarnan McCusker and the Galway Climate Festival at Galway City Council for their generous support

Celebrate 25 years of Galway tackling the Climate & Biodiversity Crises.

When it opened in 2000, Terryland Forest Park was the first community-local government partnership project designed to tackle the Climate and Biodiversity Crises well before these terms were understood by governments and the general public .

A quarter of a century later we are asking everyone in Galway to celebrate this pioneering endeavour of native woodlands and wildflower meadows by attending the rescheduled Open Day on Sunday next (Oct 5th).
An action-packed programme from 12pm to 3pm (entrance gate near Currys) includes an Origami workshop with our very good friend Thomas Cuffe, an Art workshop with artist-in-residence Helen Caird, a native bulb planting, facepainting, a pop-up library, guided tours, an exhibition of Terryland Forest Park Children's Art 2000 - 2025 and much more! We are also encouraging visitors to picnic on the day in what is after all a public park.

Please join us and please tell your friends, work colleagues and family to come along.
Photo shows a section of the park as it is now and as it was on March 12th 2000 (first community planting).

 

'Nature without Borders'- North & South Ireland unite to Restore Native Ecosystems

In a fine example of cross-border cooperation to tackle the Biodiversity Crisis, the 'Friends of Little Woods' in Fermanagh and the Tuatha of Terryland Forest Park have partnered together to create native wildlife habitats.

We gave this all-island initiative the title of 'Nature without Borders' as an encouragement to others to follow suit and to recognise that only humans put in the artificial barriers that disconnects humans and the rest of nature from each other.

The initial contact between both volunteer groups and the subsequent monies received as a result of our application under the Community Climate Action Fund were only made possible thanks to the involvement, advice and encouragement of Tiarnan Mc Cusker, the hardworking and visionary Community Climate Officer at Galway City Council.

Chris Hillcox of the Friends of Little Woods last weekend generously hosted a delegation from the Tuatha to take part in conservation activities (making bird boxes & setting up a Wildlife Observation Post) as part of the programme to develop a wet woodland in the Clogher Valley area of county Fermanagh.

It is hoped that this long-term rewilding project will provide a suitable habitat to facilitate a gradual migration of flora and fauna across the locality that are traditionally native to the area including endangered species such as pine marten and red squirrel.

Photo shows (L-R) Tobias, Mike and Ruth from the Tuatha with Chris of the Friends of Little Woods at the bog site in Clabby county Fermanagh.

Families in action at the Terryland Forest Park 'Plantathon 2025'.

A mother (Caitriona) and daughter, a father (Kevin) and son- two families united by a common cause of rewilding Galway city.

A great crowd of volunteers on a beautiful Saturday undertook important and wonderful conservation work in Terryland Forest Park as they planted a heritage orchard, a hedgerow and a woods adjacent to our developing wetlands.

So a big thank you to the 80 volunteers of all ages that continued a 25 year tradition of planting trees in Terryland Forest Parks.

Superstars everyone!

 

Many thanks to the volunteers that participated in our range of activities at Terryland Forest Park on Saturday.

As well a clean-up of the woods, meadows and pathways as part of An Taisce's National Spring Clean, volunteers also removed refuse from Terryland River, mulched the park's new fruit bush pocket orchards, and undertook the first mapping of a new 6km blue-green walking/running trail within the park and along the River Corrib/Dyke Road.

On next Saturday (March 29th) , we will be hosting our annual Community Tree Plantathon.
So please join us to celebrate 25 years since the first planting in Terryland Forest Park by creating a hedgerow, a pocket woods and a willow field.

Register at https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/1284820375329?aff=oddtdtcreator

On March 12th 2000, some of the 3,000+ volunteers, working under the auspices of Galway Corporation (now council) Parks department and its superintendent the recently appointed Stephen Walsh with a multi-sectoral committee, created a wonderful oak grove on the first day that Terryland Forest Park opened. Twenty oak saplings were planted in a circle surrounding a single oak sapling, giving recognition to the Celtic pagan druids and early Christians, especially Saint Brigid of Kildare (Cill Dara, Irish for 'church of oak') fame, who worshiped amongst nature and gave due respect to the largest of our native tree species. The ancient ones often knew more than modern society gives them credit for. For they understood the significance of trees and plants in maintaining life on the planet which science is helping us to rediscover in the last century or so.

Over the decades, we have held community family picnics, school classes and festivals in this wonderful circle of life.

Yesterday a small team of Tuatha volunteers working in the park laid the foundations for a circle of giant toadstools that will form a Fairy Ring to serve as an enchanting forest-themed Outdoor Classroom for the benefit of visiting schools and other groups.

A circle of fungi is a beautiful natural phenomena in nature that is the surface representation of a network of small threads, called mycelium, that form part of what we now refer to as the Wood Wide Web, a mutually beneficial underground communications and resource-sharing system connecting the trees of a forest.

In mythology these mushroom circles were known as Fairy Rings where the 'little people' merrily danced in the woods under the moonlight. WB Yeats mentions this in his poem The Stolen Child:

"...We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight..."

The concrete toadstools were made by our good friend, the highly talented Michael McDonnell of Cumann na bhFear. Their installation and painting will be done over the next few weeks by the Tuatha volunteers supported by the Just 3 programme of the University of Galway as part of the Galway National Park City initiative.

The first phase of this exciting new creation will be readied later this month in time for the Galway Science and Technology Festival.

Finally, new volunteers are always welcome every Saturday to help us continue to develop the park as an Outdoor Classroom, a heritage hub and as a biodiversity sanctuary.

Rendezvous on Saturday is 10am at An Nead (Irish = The Nest) at the Sandy Road entrance to the Terryland Forest Park. Google map coordinates are: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Gc334KY6JoBt6Fw96