EXCURSION TO SKERRIES, SONAIRTE, 7 MAY 2022

Our excursion on Saturday 7th May was a first in several ways: it greatly developed our existing partnership with Sonairte National Ecology Centre, and with Meath Partnership, for which we are very grateful, and it introduced us to many guests from direct provision centres including Lerrigh House, and other refugee accommodation in the Navan area, as well as from our usual base in Mosney.

A total of 77 guests participated, the largest group we have ever hosted. Countries of origin include Afghanistan, Ukraine, Nigeria, Mauritius and Zimbabwe, Pakistan and Palestine. Five volunteers from Sanctuary in Nature & Heritage (Grainne Carley, James Hackett, Tarek – originally from Syria –, Yousef – originally from Libya — and Trish Long assisted Paddy and Muhammad. Irena Kovacs and Stephanie Kirwan led for Meath Partnership, assisted by volunteers Caroline Smith, and Vera Mc Kenna from Lerrigh House, while Kim Reilly, chair of Sonairte, provided a great lunch and location for the second half of our trip.

The first half did not go as we had planned it. Muhammad, Irena and Paddy had prepared in detail for a visit to the historic heritage site of Skerries Mills with the kind help of manager Ray Hunt the previous day. 

On arrival, however, we found that the Mills had suffered a power cut, along with many houses in the area, and was not open to visitors. We took deep breaths, Ray gave us maps of the town, and we explained to our arriving guests that we were going to have to improvise.

We invited parents and children to use the Mills playground for the first half hour, distributing juices and snacks, and everyone was very patient and understanding. We decided to walk to the South Beach, already part of our plan for the ‘nature’ part of the morning, and extend the walk up to the town’s historic Martello Tower. We were delighted to enjoy warm, dry weather, though the very persistent mist made it very difficult to see Skerries’ landmark inshore islands, including the one where St Patrick is reputed to have established a monastery.

Along the way, we were able to closely observe a swan sitting on eggs at the Mills Pond – its partner may have been responsible for the power cut, as a swan died hitting a nearby powerline. We saw gulls on the beach, and a wide variety of flowers, from sea sandwort to mallow to bluebells. The ubiquitous dandelions were most popular with the children – it turned out that Afghan children play very similar games with the seed heads to Irish children. James and other volunteers swapped stories about the plants we found with our guests, some of which were familiar to some of them, some completely new to all. The rapeseed, which has escaped along local river banks from agriculture, were particularly familiar to our Ukrainian guests, as their country is massive producer of rapeseed oil.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the beach, and view of small sailboats to the north as we approached the Martello Tower. 

We then headed on to Sonairte, where we enjoyed a great buffet lunch organised by Kim, with many of our guests opting to sit outside in the courtyard, and mix with our volunteers.

We then moved out to Sonairte’s beautiful heritage apple orchard in bright sunlight, and split into two groups. Stephanie led a story-telling workshop with one, while Paddy, ably assisted by Muhammad, and by James, who is a horticulturalist, brought the other group on a nature walk. We visited the organic and pollinator-friendly gardens, and then moved out to the woodland walk with views of the tidal section of the River Nanny, which runs alongside the woodland. We saw some little egrets on the mudflats, and shelduck on the river.

On the walk, we saw native trees like silver birch, holly, and ash, and discussed the importance of ash, both for forming the core of biodiverse hedgerows, and as material for hurley sticks, and challenge presented for the future by ash die-back disease.

As we always do, we invited our guests to tell us about nature in their countries. Our friends from Mauritius told us of how the prized hardwood ebony tree barely survives its ruthless exploitation there, and is likely to suffer the same fate as the island’s emblematic but long extinct flightless bird, the dodo. 

There was also a lot of discussion of Ireland’s lack of reptiles, especially snakes, in contrast with the home places of most of our visitors. Inevitably, the legend of St Patrick banishing the snakes arose, especially as we had just been in Skerries, the town that claims the patron saint as its own, that morning. 

Meanwhile, our other guests were taken through a storytelling workshop with Stephanie Kirwan from Meath Partnership. The session focused on the opportunities which storytelling offers with regards to inclusion and identity. The participants engaged in various activities whereby they shared their personal stories with others and shared snippets from their culture. The storytelling workshop also focused on the increasing the participants’ knowledge on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

In addition, the storytelling workshop offered the opportunity to showcase a new online learning platform for language learners across Europe. The platform was developed as part of the Chellis project which is an Erasmus+ Adult Education programme. Details of the project and access to the learning platform can be found here: https://www.chellis.eu/ 

Finally, it was time to go home, after a group photo outside Sonairte. All the participants we talked to had enjoyed the day a lot, and expressed interest in going out with us again. 

Thanks as ever to the very helpful bus drivers ( Brian and Joe) and Lee-Ann Kierans of Kierans of Drogheda Bus Hire.

To Tarek for the photographs of the day’s events

And especially to the Communities Integration Fund set up by the 

Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.