Brigit's Garden Blog

Upcoming May events at Brigit’s Garden

Garden Admin — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:56:41 +0000

For a complete guide to What’s on this summer at Brigit’s Garden, Click here.

May Holiday weekend music & fun

►Sunday May 2nd from 2pm
Michael Folan (accordion) & friends

►Monday May 3rd from 2pm
Paul Bradley (fiddle) and Paddy Kerr (bouzouki)

Fun for kids! Pond-dipping for water bugs both days. Café will be open.

Con Tempo quartet in concert
►Thursday 14th May at 8pm

We are delighted to announce that Con Tempo quartet, Galway’s popular Ensemble in Residence, will be performing a special concert in the Hazel Room at Brigit’s Garden. Click here for full details.

Tickets are only €10, at the door or in advance from 091 586706

Open Day and Biodiversity Blitz
►Sunday 16th May 2 – 5.30pm
With Roscahill Environmental Network

Join us for a FREE day of activities and fun!
Café open
Click here for a detailed schedule of events for the day.

Call for submissions for Outside: Insight Sculpture in the gardens

Garden Admin — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:34:05 +0000

Outside: Insight
Sculpture in the gardens

Call for Submissions: 14th May 2010

We are now seeking submissions for the 3rd annual Outside:Insight Sculpture in the gardens 2010, and invite artists to create/submit site specific works that respond to the natural and architectural landscape of the garden and its inherent themes.

For full details on how to submit work to the exhibition CLICK HERE.

For descriptions and photographs of the gardens
CLICK HERE to see our website.

The exhibition runs from 11th July to 11th September 2010 and is FREE to visitors with their admission. Look for details in our upcoming newsletters.

Did you see last year’s exhibit? If so, share your thoughts…we look forward to having you share your thoughts on this year’s exhibit and your comments on your favourite pieces during the exhibit!

The Garden Cafe – Easy Gourmet Recipe

Garden Admin — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:10:22 +0000

Food for thought…The Garden Café at Brigit’s Garden is opening daily on May 1st from 10.30 am to 5 pm. Click here for a sample menu and more information.

This recipe is from our May newsletter…Click here

if you would like to sign up to receive our monthly newsletters that will keep you informed on what’s on at the gardens and other content like recipes and garden tips!

Simple Spring Salad

This recipe is as simple as it is fresh and wholesome. At Brigit’s Garden we believe in slow food that nourishes body and soul, using wholesome ingredients in a tranquil setting. That is just one reason why The Garden Café is recommended in Georgina Campbell’s ‘The Best of the Best’ places to eat in Ireland.

We’d love to hear your feedback on this recipe…or share one of your own salad recipes with our readers!

Ingredients
1 & 1/2 orange, juice only
1/2 lemon, juice only
1/2 small red onion, chopped
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
a pinch of fine grain salt
4 big handfuls of salad greens, washed and dried
113 g / (1/2 cup) walnut halves, toasted
76 g (1/3 cup) cured black olives pitted – (kalamata or niçoise) 1/2 cup walnut halves, toasted

Dressing
In a medium bowl whisk together the juice of 1/2 orange, lemon juice, most of the red onion, olive oil, and salt. Taste and adjust with more salt or lemon juice if needed.

Salad
Cut the remaining orange into segments and set aside. Place the salad greens in a large bowl. Toss very gently with a generous splash of the dressing. Add the orange segments and walnuts. Give another toss. Serve salad topped with the remaining red onion and the olives.

Celebrate Spring with music & bio-diversity

Garden Admin — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 18:37:28 +0000

Spring is here!
Summer came early this week and the gardens were bathed in unusually warm April sunshine. After the cold winter all the daffodils came out at once, and the woodlands are sparkling with white wood anemones, one of my favourite wild flowers.

We are delighted to be joining forces with a new local group, the Roscahill Environmental Network, for the Open Day and Biodiversity Blitz on Sunday May 16th. It will be a full day, starting with a Dawn Chorus walk at 4.30am! We are busy preparing our development plans for launching as part of the family afternoon of activities, so we hope you will be able to join us.

Meanwhile, there will be music and fun for the May holiday weekend too.

We’d love to hear about what you are noticing this spring in your gardens or on walks…and any thoughts you may

Happy spring,
From Jenny and all the team

Brigit’s Cloak Traditons: We loved to hear from you about yours!

Garden Admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:48:01 +0000

Brigit’s Cloak Traditons: We loved to hear from you about yours!

The story of the young St Brigit asking the King for land for her monastery is well known. In most versions the Chieftain tells her that she can only have as much land as her cloak will cover, so she casts her cloak on the ground and it magically expands to cover a huge area of fertile land around Kildare. In an alternative version Brigit takes off her cloak and her helpers cut it into many thin strips, which they placed end to end on the ground and enclosed a large area of land.

In Connemara, as in many other areas, it was customary to place a piece of cloth over a hedge on the eve of Brigit’s Day and leave it out overnight. Brigit was said to pass by in the night and imbue the cloth with protective and curative powers. This was known as ‘brat Bhríde’ meaning Brigit’s mantle or cloak and was cut into pieces for use as required. In some areas of South Connemara the brat was traditionally used as a headache cure.

Please share any Brigit’s traditions you have experienced or know of with our readers

December Nature Watch – Long tailed tits

Garden Admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:08:25 +0000

Long-tailed tits

Hanging out bird feeders during the winter not only helps many small birds survive, but also brings great pleasure to the family. It is a great way of inspiring children’s interest in birds. It is such fun to watch garden favourites such as blue tits and great tits at peanut feeders. A special winter treat is to have a visit from another member of the tit family, long-tailed tits. They are unmistakable with their black and white plumage, plump little bodies and long tails as they travel in small groups through hedgerows and gardens in search of food.

The good news is that according to Birdwatch Ireland’s annual survey, long-tailed tits are increasing in numbers. If you would like to participate in their garden bird survey it starts at the end of this month and is very worthwhile. See birdwatchireland.ie for details.

Jenny Beale

Reflections on Brigit’s Garden non-profit project

Garden Admin — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:59:36 +0000

With the arrival of autumn the year moves towards completion and nature draws back into the earth. It is a good time for reflecting on the past and planning the future. This beautiful poem written by Geraldine Mills for the garden perfectly captures the sense of the season.

In Brigit’s Garden
Earthwoman listens to herself
She knows her own voice
She curves round the year
Like a green shawl,
She waits for her own time.

The blackbird hops between seasons
A snail moves at its own pace
Through woven willow,
Chimes spill out their sound.

Earthwoman bends to the dark
Listens,
And the earth tells her
What she needs to know.

Geraldine Mills
June 2006

For Brigit’s Garden this has been an uncertain and sometimes difficult year. Much has gone very well, especially our special events, schools programme and summer camps — but the recession has affected us in many ways, from reduced visitor numbers to the loss of some grant aid. Having celebrated our 5th birthday in July we would love to have your ideas on how the project should develop sustainably over the next 5 years.

So if you have a few minutes share your thoughts at Brigit’s Blog or click here to email your answers on these questions:

What do you value about the gardens and the place itself, our ethos and our activities and events?
How would you like to see each of these areas change and develop over the next few years?

We appreciate your comments and ideas. Thank you!

October Nature Watch – Sloes

Garden Admin — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:47:31 +0000

On bright autumn days you may notice small purple fruits in the hedgerows, like miniature plums. These are sloes, the fruit of the blackthorn bush, and although they are related to eating plums they are too sour to eat raw. Blackthorn is one of our most common hedgerow species and clothes the countryside with delicate white blossom in April.

A traditional use for sloes is to flavour sloe gin – see the recipe below to make a warming winter liqueur. Share your recipes or observations on what is going on in nature around you during the month of October.

Sloe Gin Recipe
Pick your sloes (mind the thorns!), wash them and prick with a needle. Pack them in a jar with 100gm sugar for every half-litre of sloes, and a few cloves and a cinnamon stick if desired. Cover with gin, seal the jar and turn it a few times. Leave in a cool dark place for about three months, turning regularly. The gin should now be a deep red colour. Decant carefully, leaving the sediment behind. The result is a delicious liqueur with a distinctive flavour. Make it now for a lovely Christmas gift!

Kindness is Contagious – pass it on!

Garden Admin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:05:58 +0000

We in Brigit’s Garden wanted to celebrate our 5^th birthday with something positive, inspiring and fun. So we came up with the idea of Kindness is Contagious – pass it on!, a new initiative to replace recessionary blues with summer smiles through re-discovering the simple joys and pleasures of being kind to one another.

Our intention is to promote simple acts of kindness and community goodwill; acts that are offered in a spirit of generosity without expecting anything in return.

Offering a kindness is like tossing a pebble into a pool and creating a ripple effect. The more pebbles that are tossed into the pool the more kindness will ripple out far and wide.

To launch Kindness is Contagious – pass it on! we hosted a Kindness Celebration at Brigit’s Garden on Sunday July 12th our 5^th birthday. We invited everyone to come and experience the magic of the gardens free of charge for the day.

We celebrated the sunny summer day with over 500 visitors…many were our old friends and many have now become new friends. We blew out the candles on our birthday cake and passed around a taste to everyone while Jenny Beale wove a Brigit’s cross from fresh rushes from the meadow. While weaving Jenny spoke of gratitude for all the special elements that make Brigit’s Garden thrive as a not-for-profit educational charity.

All afternoon, visitors enjoyed live, traditional Irish music, along with many special activities for the young and the young at heart such as pond dipping for beasties, face-paining, hanging wishes on the wishing tree, set-dancing and more!

As an important part of the day there were opportunities for people to share ideas about kindness and ways of passing it on by writing their thoughts on our Kindness Wall. Kids were invited to draw their thoughts about kindness. Everyone was invited to come to Louchán (the tranquil lake at the Gardens) during their visit to toss a symbolic pebble into the water while contemplating thoughts on what kindness means.

We hope our Kindness Celebration helped inspire people to pass on the spirit of kindness in whatever way they can, in their families, neighbourhoods or workplaces. Our birthday celebration is over, but we aim to keep the imitative of ‘Kindness is contagious…pass it on!’ going.

Please tell us here what your thoughts on kindness are…who knows maybe we will start a worldwide trend! !