Ballyannan Wood & Choctaw Monument

 Ballyannan Wood & Choctaw Monument

Midleton, Co. Cork. 20/09/2020

Midleton

Ballinacurra

Hayfield

Message in a bottle. The Fairy Folk invite you to post a message!

Richard Scott Sculpture Gallery at Ballymaloe House

Richard Scott Sculpture Gallery

 at Ballymaloe House

Tall Dog. Seamus Connolly.

The Ballymaloe Sculpture Exhibition in association with Richard Scott Sculpture will continue until the end of August, viewing daily from 9 am to 9 pm. A large selection  of works in stone, bronze, stainless steel, ceramic and indeed grass look splendid in the open air. It is entirely informal, to be enjoyed. Be sure and bring the kids. The selection here gives you some idea of what to expect and you may see all the exhibits on line here.

The Allen family have been long-time supporters of the arts and this particular sculpture series began in 2014. Check out the one night Art Appreciation Break offer and the "Walk and Talk Tours" (no charge) on the Ballymaloe website here. By the way, admission to the gallery is free.

Odysseus. Aidan Harte

Looking back to Ballymaloe House from the outdoor gallery

On Reflection. Gareth Shiels

Venus of Holles Street. Jason Ellis

Goast Star. Redmond Herrity

Hen. Krystyna Pomeroy. - Raven. Adam Pomeroy. - Butterfly. Redmond Herrity

They met, they discussed and they decided. Sonia Caldwell

Sentinel. Richard Healy

Newgrange Burial Stone. Nuala Early

Internet Calisthenics Guy. James Horan

Oakfield Park and Buffers Bistro. Superb Day Out for Adults and Kids Alike

Oakfield Park

 and Buffers Bistro.

Superb Day Out for Adults and Kids Alike. 

Longsleeper

“There are one hundred acres here. The train will take you through the lower fifty and you can walk the upper fifty.” 

So we were told as entered the fabulous Oakfield Park in Raphoe, County Donegal. The train will cost you an extra five euro so we added that on. Probably just as well as the 100 acres is packed with various attractions, parklands, woodlands, sculptures (of all shapes and sizes), a traditional walled garden, a kitchen garden and more, including a lovely bistro. The only part not open to the public is the 18th century Georgian house originally built for the Dean of Raphoe.

We pick up the mini-train at the station (where else?). And the station buildings look like the real thing, red brick dominant, even used in the front of the restaurant which is, appropriately, named Buffers. 

The train winds its way through the woods and the open spaces, getting close to most of the features in the lower fifty. The biggest one, the most eye-catching, is the Longsleeper, a sculpture by local artist Locky Morris and unveiled for the Spring 2015 re-opening of Oakfield Park, commissioned by park owners Sir Gerry and Lady Heather Robinson. The same artist created the imposing Polestar sculpture which you may see on one of roundabouts in Letterkenny 

Longsleeper 

Longsleeper is made from 17 tons of oak and appears to perform visual and structural acrobatics!  And that impression is certainly and dramatically enhanced as the little train winds its way around it. Oakfield Park is renowned for its narrow gauge train and some of the inspiration for the massive piece comes from the railway. Longsleeper may also be viewed from various distances between two rows of trees with Croaghan Hill, an ancient burial mound in the background.

Flower meadows, lakes and streams, as well as wild and wetland areas are entwined with over 4km of narrow gauge railway to give hours of pleasure.

Deer by Rupert Till

We treated ourselves to lunch in Buffers when we arrived back at the station. They support local here of course, Ballyholey Farm Shop, Donegal Rapeseed Oil, Kinnegar Brewery and McCarron’s Butchers among the suppliers. And much of the fruit and vegetables comes from the kitchen garden up by the big house.

I enjoyed my Toasted Sourdough Sandwich, Baked Ham, Cheddar, Caramelised Onions with Soup of the Day (8.50). The sourdough is nicely cut, not those big thick slabs you get in some places, and the soup is a full bowl by the way. Well pleased with that. The Goats Cheese Salad, flavoured with their own honey, Candied Hazelnuts and Pickled Slaw Salad (9.95) was another fine dish, full of flavour and both were well-priced. This is quite a large space and there is room to eat outside as well.

Next we crossed the road and entered the upper grounds with the big house on the hill dominating the view unless you go into the woods of course. More thoughtfully placed pieces of sculptures around here. The first big feature is the lake, planted with reeds and wild flowers. A gurgling fountain powerfully pushes white water a few feet above the surface and a Castle Folly provides stunning views towards the house above and also the lower grounds. There is also a boardwalk that takes you on a loop through the reeds and back to terra firma.

Make your way then up the hill and soon you’ll find the perfect parterre and next to it the beautiful walled garden with its ponds (colourful carp circling) and pillars. Last month, the gardens were at their summer best, full of colour. Took our time around here before making our way to the kitchen garden. This is a working garden, lots of fruit and vegetables here for the house itself of course and also for the restaurant below.

A leisurely walk, with detours here and there, took us back down to the car park and, with a final look along the avenue of trees to the Longsleeper we said goodbye to Oakfield and headed back towards Letterkenny. 

All in all, a superb visit to a very well equipped place. Lots to see and do for adults and kids, the train, the bistro and picnic tables, WCs of course, and no shortage of parking. Very Highly Recommended.

Oakfield Park, Raphoe, Co. Donegal

Also on this trip: Kinnegar Brewery
 Mary T. From Mallow to Donegal's Castle Grove
Something fishy going on in Donegal
Malin Head, Fanad and Rosguill Peninsulas
Downings. A Great Base for Donegal Visit

Coming Home. Art and the Great Hunger

John Coll's Famine Funeral

Art and the Great Hunger is an exhibition of the world’s largest collection of famine related art and is being shown for the first time in Ireland. The collection, from Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, constitutes a direct link to the past of almost 6.5 million Irish, and 40 million Irish-American people. The exhibition may be viewed at Uillinn, West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen until 13 October 2018 (Monday to Saturday: 10.00 am to 4.45 pm) and will be in Derry after Christmas.

The exhibition website: The death and dispersion of 2 million people, followed by a further 2 million emigrations to the end of the century, makes the exhibition an important gesture of cultural reconnection. The Irish diaspora defines Ireland’s place in the world today. The impact of the Famine is still with its descendants—both at home and abroad.

This major undertaking aims to strengthen the deep cultural connection between Ireland and its diaspora by showcasing the world’s largest collection of Great Hunger-related art never before exhibited on Irish soil. Please join with us in making this powerful artistic, cultural and educational endeavor a memorable one.

Walk in here to the Uillinn and you will cry, silently perhaps, but you will weep for the individual losses and the communal loss that dealt a close to knockout blow to the Irish nation, a blow that still reverberates. Who knows how this country would now stand if the four million needlessly lost to us through death and emigration had remained fed and healthy.

One poor soul has reached the end of the hungry road in John Coll's Famine Funeral (above), the corpse carried by a quartet who themselves are on their last legs, each wondering who will remain to carry him. And will there be someone there to identify him and make sure he is buried in consecrated ground? Many weren't given that privilege, vagrants and new-born babies among them.

The exhibition features works that focus on the time of the famine and its aftermath. Paintings dominate but the handful of sculptures, most of them modern, make powerful statements just like Famine Funeral. Many escaped the famine by boat only to die on arrival in New York and they are honoured by Rowan Gillespie's Statistic 1 & 11.

Detail from Rowan Gillespie's Statistic 1

There are paintings by well-known artists such as Jack B. Yeats and Paul Henry. Many paintings tell of emigration, a living death as most of those about to board ship were never to return. Gorta, a stark and powerful work, tinged in blue, by Lillian Lucy Davidson, depicts a poorly attended funeral. A child is being buried. The few relations have nothing and face a future of nothingness. One fingers a rosary beads.  Eli Eli lama sabachthani? (My God why hast thou forsaken me?).

Accompanied by a rich and diverse programme of performances, talks, lectures and events at Uillinn, and off-site in other locations in West Cork, Coming Home is a unique opportunity for the people of Cork and visitors to the region alike to experience artworks by major Irish and Irish American artists of the past 170 years such as Jack B. Yeats, Daniel MacDonald, Paul Henry, William Crozier, Hughie O'Donoghue, Dorothy Cross and Alanna O'Kelly. See it in Derry( January-March 2019).

The Uillinn

Associated Events (some now completed):

Explore the West Cork schools programme; a series of artist residencies in association with the Crawford Art Gallery and University College Cork; a unique performance by acclaimed Irish artist Alanna O'Kelly for Schull Workhouse, Anáil na Beatha; a reading by Jeremy Irons of The Cummins Letter – a letter written by a local JP, in 1848, to Wellington describing conditions on Reen and appealing for help, taking place at Reen Farm Sculpture Garden, where internationally renowned artist John Jelly lives with his family; a celebration of the legacy of young women who emigrated to Australia after the Famine called 110 Skibbereen Girls; Chronicles of The Great Irish Famine concert with Declan O’Rourke and guests. There are the Famine Stories Walking Tours, garden trails at Reen Farm Sculpture Garden, an artists talk in the gallery with Robert Ballagh, the world premiere of Rua Breathnach’s Welcome To The Stranger at Skibbereen Town Hall, the Canon Goodman Concert with Lúnasa, Point Of Departure: A Lament film screening and drama workshops for children, a poetry reading by Cherry Smyth of her long form poem Famished as well as day long field trips, family friendly Discovery Boxes and numerous Heritage Centre Talks.

Coming Home: Art and the Great Hunger is a major historical, cultural and educational event, spreading throughout West Cork and over 3 months, that should not be missed.
Visitors to A Taste of West Cork, take note!
See it in Derry( January-March 2019).

Ballymaloe Garden Festival

Ballymaloe Garden Festival
Marking Ballymaloe's 50th Anniversary

Welcome!

Naturally enough, there will be quite a focus on food when the second annual Ballymaloe Garden Festival is held on 30th and 31st of August. Klaus Laitenberger will show you how to grow organic vegetables, Debbie Shaw will tell you all about raw food while Michael Kelly will present his guide to growing your own food.  

If you feel hungry after all that gardening, you’ll have choices. The Big Shed will be in use again and there will be food served by local market heroes. And that’s not all. Tom and Johann Doorley will be on hand on Sunday to show you “how to eat your garden”. They believe that good food should be enjoyed by everybody and that cooking is therefore a vital life skill.

The Festival, to be held in the grounds at Ballymaloe House, promises to be a wonderful weekend full of garden workshops, walks, and talks, says Aoife McCann. “We will have specialist nursery stalls filled with seeds, rare and old fashioned trees, shrubs, climbers, perennials, fruit, culinary and medicinal herbs and garden equipment all manned by experts.”

FORM Sculpture trail

“It will be all about sustainable garden design, layered pruning, saving seeds and our traditional native heritage, demonstrating different methods of propagation, growing interesting and unusual food, forgotten skills of  bygone times, foraging for cuttings and flowers for fabulous floral arrangements, growing your own vegetables from seeds, growing a market garden business, a photography workshop, cookery demonstration, first aid from your garden, native Irish bees and so much more.”

“We will be joined this year by Gary Graham, Brian Cross, Caroline Holmes, Fiann Ó Nualláin, Michael Kelly, Debbie Shaw, Tom and Johann Doorley, Thady Barrett and many others ……The timetable of events is available here.”

This year sees Ballymaloe celebrate its 50th year and to mark this Susan Turner has designed a new garden for the Festival, set within the walled garden. Susan will give the opening talk of the festival introducing the  50th Year Anniversary Garden and her design.

Borage.

Richie Scott of Artistic Alliance, together with some of the exhibiting artists, will give tours of  FORM,  an outdoor sculpture exhibition on the grounds of Ballymaloe House.

“The Big Shed will be back with a children’s area, plant, craft and gardening tools stalls. Lots of free talks given by our garden experts. There will be food served by our local market heroes. A delicious time to be had while learning about saving seeds, our edible landscape, first aid from the garden, conservatory plants and garden equipment demonstrations.”

Cost of entry to the festival is €5 per adult, with children under 16 free. Entrance tickets available on the day.

The garden lectures and workshops held in the Grainstore/Walled Garden will be priced individually, tickets will be available on the day and on website .

Any enquiries please email GardenFestival@ballymaloe.com or phone Aoife on 087 2675022.

Art, Craft and Food Naturally at Ballymaloe

Art, Craft and Food Naturally at Ballymaloe

Palais de Poulets

Ballymaloe is a working farm, producing magic by the moment. I went through the looking glass last Wednesday and, in a few short hours, sampled this incredible place.

With Colm McCan as our guide, we passed the Palais des Poulets and stepped into a one acre bubble where all kinds of vegetables grow organically under the warm shelter. And so too do a selection of vines, though even the enthusiastic Colm knows that more magic will be needed if the fruit of these East Cork plants is to be turned into wine.

A fertile Allen imagination is at work in the calm warm place. One segment of the shelter has a newly laid carpet, of grass. Here later in the month, one hundred people will sit down for the Long Table Dinner, a night of fine food and conviviality.

Under cover clockwise from bottom left:
tomatoes, passionfruit flower, Colm with grapes,
and borage in the herb garden

Many tales illustrate the 30 year old story of Darina Allen’s Cookery School and we mingle with the students for lunch. The starter is pea soup. Sounds mundane enough. But it was excellent and the main course, with the Belly Bacon an outstanding feature, was incredibly delicious.

And the magic was sweetly evident on the dessert plate, emphasized by that natural cream from the Jersey cows, a memory of good times past but very much part of the present reality here in Ballymaloe, provided by six Jerseys that yield the milk for the table and for the students to make their butter, cheese and yoghurts.

Man does not live by bread alone, though I could think of a worse diet than that emanating from the Ballymaloe ovens. Colm now directed us to the gardens, starting with the herb garden, based on the legendary gardens of Villandry. May not have quite the scope of the Loire chateau but Ballymaloe has its surprises, including that unforgettable After Eight Mint (one of many varieties, including Banana and Orange).

Dinner. Check out that Jersey cream on the dessert plate!

Soon we were into the herbaceous border, a magnificent example of the type, and heading for the  Shell House, hardly a house, just a very small building but unforgettable. Here, some 20,000 shells have been artistically arranged (by Blott Kerr Wilson in 1995). You'll never look at mussel shells or scallop shells in the same way again. The gardens and shell house are open to the public and there is a charge.

Back in the main house, built around the remains of a 15th century Fitzgerald castle, part of which still stands, we went down to the wine cellar in the rock on which the buildings stand. Here lay treasure! Colm handled some of the great wines of the world with care and, like a good Corkman, I just looked, eyes and mouth open!

Time now for a reviving cup of coffee and where else would you go but to the tig beag, the roasting house of Mark and Golden Bean, right next to the well known wine and entertainment venue, the Grain Store. Mark was roasting a few kilograms of Ethiopian beans so we waited for the crack and soon we were sampling, via his AeroPress, the freshest coffee we had ever tasted. Mark, by the way, has a new outlet for his excellent coffee and soon you'll be able to buy and drink it at the Princes’ Street store, just opened (02/07/14), by The Rocket Man.

Mussel shells in small sample from Shell House

Now for a little cultural exercise, in the environs of the house and the field outfront. Colm introduced us to Richie Scott, the exhibition's coordinator. Richie would be our knowledgeable guide on the sculpture trail which features a walk into the middle of the cornfield to see some of the exhibits.

Richie first assembled FORM for Mount Juliet last year and now this revised version will be in Ballymaloe until September 28th. There is something for everyone here: some humorous pieces, some severe, large scale pieces and small, abstract and figurative. You may not like every piece but do bring the kids and let them loose; take your time as you walk around and let your eye wander and allow the magic in.

My favourite, in this first walkabout, was perhaps Holger Lonze, especially The Large Seabird. Enjoyed too the quirky pieces, mainly in Kilkenny Limestone, by Eileen McDonagh. And what about that stranded surfboard, high and dry at the base of the big tree? Go see for yourself. No charge.

Almost ready. Mark checks a roast.

After quite a packed few hours it was time to say goodbye. But we’ll soon be back. Already the first date is confirmed. On Thursday, 24th July, at 7.00pm, a Krug Champagne tasting with Nicole Burke, Krug USA Brand Ambassador, will be held in the Ballymaloe Cookery School (note venue). Contact colm@ballymaloe.ie for further details and bookings.

And all that magic? Probably the usual formula: 5% inspiration, 95% perspiration.

Some upcoming Ballymaloe events

Ballymaloe Garden Festival, August 30th and 31st. www.ballymaloe.ie

Feel Good Food: Let’s Cook, one day course with Chef and Nutritionist Debbie Shaw at the Cookery School, Monday July 21st. www.cookingisfun.ie

Master It with Rory O’Connell, Two Day Course which sees Rory teaching a slection from his book. Wednesday Jul;y 30th to Friday Augist 1st.  www.cookingisfun.ie

On the FORM trail.