Heritage Week

Heritage Week (August 22nd – 29th) is fast approaching, and Cabragh Wetlands is planning a special Open Day on Sunday 29th August, when we hope to celebrate the many good things that are done in the Thurles area to support, cherish and sustain our natural and human heritage. We want to encourage awareness of and support for the many local enterprises and groups which play a part in raising awareness of environmental and heritage issues, be it hill walkers, green schools, sustainable energy businesses, farmers’ market stallholders, food producers, allotment groups, gardeners, chicken coop manufacturers, education and transport providers, and so on.



We face a difficult future in the light of so many environmental challenges, and as individuals and communities we will need to be resilient and innovative if we are to adapt more sustainable styles of living. For our Open Day we hope to have a range of stalls and displays set up by groups and enterprises which can contribute in this area, adding to our local vision of how a better future can be built from the grassroots. We hope that the cumulative effect of a number of such displays will make an informative and challenging statement to visitors about how we can cherish our heritage while adapting a new mindset to help us build a more sustainable future.



As an Open Day there will of course be the usual range of raffles, sales of cards, cakes and bird boxes, animals to see, children’s events, and guided tours of the Cabragh Wetlands, and plenty more. A great afternoon out for the family! Visiting stalls will be welcome to advertise their own events, sell their goods and seek new members. After all this is a community day, a chance for those of us with a common interest to network and build links.



If your group would like to take part, please get in touch in the next two weeks, via e-mail (cabraghwetlands@eircom.net), or call 0504 43879 (mornings), or 086-3179919. The event is supported by the Heritage Council, which will give it some national advertising.



There will be a second Heritage week event at the Cabragh Wetlands on Sunday 22nd August, run in conjunction with Thurles Library, when popular bug expert Dale Treadwell will join children and families in exploring the wetlands, and there will be a display about how the European Union is helping to protect our environment – a timely reminder that communities and government institutions from the local to the supranational, must work together. Competition for progress is a myth – it is cooperation that is needed.

Summer Course

For many months now Cabragh Wetlands have been ringing with the most important sound of all – that wonderful chorus of children delightfully absorbing this fascinating corner of the natural world. Michael Long and his team have brought the ooh-ah factor to hundreds of children throughout the early summer, while the recently held Summer Camp saw drawn-out, sunny dappled days go down a treat along the towering passages through the humongous reedbeds. While having fun, the children have also been learning ideas, values, skills and information that will help them adjust to living in a world facing great environmental changes and challenges.

On an adult level, this joy of limitless movement in the great outdoors turns to concern for the future of all “wildscapes”, and particularly their defining characteristic – their biodiversity. Maintaining the biodiversity of any natural habitat entails a good knowledge of those habitats, initially through personal experiences and hands-on approaches. When we come to understand how a natural habitat developed, its stunning variety and current threats to its viability, then we can work to ensure that this patchwork world of Irish nature survives and maybe flourishes for generations to come.

Increasing numbers of visitors are experiencing the magic of reedbed, wet meadow, hedgerow and pond at Cabragh. This year in the last week of July an introductory course about Tipperary’s varied habitats takes place at Cabragh Wetland Centre, Monday to Friday, 9am to 2pm July 26th to 30th. The course is entitled “A Handful of Habitats” and is targeted at adults who enjoy the varied world of Irish nature. It will also be enjoyed by Primary School teachers who want to develop their confidence and expertise to take children out of the classroom and into the real world, and also older teenagers who might wish to add to their store of knowledge of the natural world, perhaps in preparation for their science certificate examinations. Tourists will also be very welcome.

Wherever you are coming from, your time at Cabragh in the last week of July be of great benefit and is “probably the best staycation” around! The course costs €60 and will be led by local teacher, naturalist and heritage expert Jimmy Duggan. For details phone 0504-23831 or 087-7567273.

Nettles

Of course many people had a good moan, but hasn’t the rain been fantastic over the last week? Getting deep into the ground, it has revived the struggling roots of many plants, from hedges, trees and grass to flowers, fruit and vegetables. The spuds have really perked up. Rivers were running very low and it’s been a blessing to have several downpours. Sorry if your tan has lost its edge, but after months of sunshine, rain is unequivocally good weather – just ask those who live near the world’s expanding deserts.

Being confined indoors for most of July, I was taken aback to see how much the nettles have grown recently – in part due to the rain, of course. This is a much maligned plant, which most of us are only too keen to chop down and rip out of our gardens. It is as important a plant as you will find for the conservation of Ireland’s butterflies, and it is getting close to the time of year when most butterflies will emerge from their chrysalis stage to adorn our gardens and countryside. Their habitat needs protection, and that means looking after your nettles. Nettles are the solitary food plant for the larvae of three major butterfly species, the Small Tortoiseshell, the Red Admiral and the Peacock, and are a major food source for the Painted Lady, which you may remember arrived in Ireland in unusually great numbers last summer. Please allow a patch of nettles to grow somewhere on your land, and cut it back now so that new growth can come through for a second brood of butterflies.

So what if the hairs of nettle leaves secrete a liquid containing formic that causes a few tingles, if you are careless enough to brush your skin against it? Remember the old saying: “A little bit of pain never hurt anyone!” This is a seriously valuable plant. What we eat is largely a combination of fashion and food company policy – they select the vegetables and seed types that we use, giving us a choice from a mere handful of options, while Nature has tens of thousands of varieties that are mostly ignored. Fresh young nettles can be picked and cooked like spinach, chopped nettles make great liquid manures and organic pest deterrents, nettle seeds mixed with mash induce hens to lay more. Many homeopathic remedies pick up on age old folk-wisdom which used nettle to help cure eczema, cramps, anaemia, dropsy, diabetes, diarrhoea, urinary problems and rheumatism – and even dandruff and baldness. Throw young nettles (without roots and seeds) on your compost heap – they are nitrogen-rich and their long root systems draw in much goodness from deep in the ground – more green manure.

I heard a familiar yet out of place sound yesterday, a solitary buzzy-bellow that spread hauntingly across the fields on the edge of Holycross. Could this be a lone specimen of a southern African species that normally lives in huge flocks, enjoys human company and displays with memorably vibrant tones? Despite scanning the area with binoculars, there was no sign of its instantly recognizable long streamlined body and bulbous head, but one must have migrated from the southern hemisphere, perhaps smuggled in a tourist’s luggage. Yes, the first vuvuzela has arrived in Tipperary. No doubt many more will be in the pet shops in the coming months. Now there’s another use for a large patch of nettles – just chuck the vuvuzela into it.