What happened in 2023?

/0 Comments/in /by

Well a lot…

In 2023, the garden was very busy as we opened our urban haven to multiple groups and organisations. There are so many that we are probably forgetting some. Drop us a line if you used the garden and we forgot to mention it. Big HELLO & shout out to our friends from:

Dublin Cycles Campaign annual Food Cycle (trip around community gardens) (May)

Refugee Health European conference visit (June)
Cruinniu na nog – Nature Mobile workshop (June)
Lets Set Sail (with Ellie O’Neill and Silver Birch) (July)
ATD Ireland (Altogether in Dignity with Saol, Pavee Point and more) – Festival of Change (July)
Sonnie Condell & Robbie Overson concert (August)
Ceili with Ceoltoiri Chluain Tarbh (August)
Rather Gather festivalito (September)
Huni Kui – Amazonian culture (September)
Kevin Murphy & friends (concert) – (October)
2 instrument making workshops with Masamba (October)
12th European Forum ECLLD  Field trip (October)
Workequal – workshop about being confident (december)
Other partnership (ongoing)
NCIRL Early Learning Initiative After School projects (local primary schools) ‘Doodle Den’
A Playful City + Swan Youth Club / UCD students
Hill Street Family Resource Centre visits ( with one of our gardener Breffni’s workshop)
Cluid Housing Association residents (inspiration for their own gardens)
Liberty Park Creche
Young adults from Shaping Futures project, (INOU initiative)
Teacher Heather Gray (Creative Minds Arts & Culture festival)
Dublin City Community Co-operative
Our Organic Garden
Community Climate Action (on zoom)
EasyTreesie
Gaelic Woodland Project
8 week Get Growing training for learners of English (GreenFriends)
Common Purpose training organisation (innovative community initiatives)
Patuyu – bolivian dancing group (ongoing)
Take One Ingredient (ongoing)
Global Citizenship Education / Lourdes Youth & Community Service (LYCS)
Sea Scouts
Local Community Safety Partnership (LCSP) Probation & Community Service team
(Welcomed referrals from Social Prescribing workers & mental health workers to join as gardeners)
DCC’s biodiversity officer & DCC’s community climate action officer.

Afghan Kite making workshop (August)

CPR training (September)
East Wall Here 4 All, Cross Cultural Conversations, Intercultural Language Service and the lovely Integration officers and volunteers
from Gateway, East Wall.
TCD research
Cloud Café (adds to compost, brings us brownies and lend us their barbecue!)
Da Mimmo (pizzas & school project)
Tree craft (wood chip for garden paths)
Child Vision (delivering precious horse manure)

Forthcoming visits planned include students from Trinity’s Botanical Society and we are also looking for volunteers interested in getting involved with Heritage Keepers and do not miss out Tornaido Fire Performance & fundraiser March 23 rd (from 6pm)!

Festival in a van (with Narrative4) received a DCC Neighbourhood Grant to develop ‘the Stories of Hope’, a storytelling exchange
project in Mud Island in 2024 Date TBC.

We also helped some two film crews (short film shot in Alderborough House) &  a small Film crew shooting onsite.
Promotional video for ‘Mad Dog’ (launch 24 th March 2024 in the garden!).

Our team of volunteers also organise our own events:
Table Quiz in Cusack’s (April), Spring Fair (in collaboration Five Lamps Arts Festival), Open Day (June), Harvest Festival (August), Halloween (700 visitors!) & Christmas Fair with our first Irish language festival, Féile na Láibe.
Seed to Pizza project with local primary schools (March to September).
And our first own Brigid’s celebration (February).

In 2023, we also had some ongoing activities in the garden, which will continue in 2024:
– Crochet & knitting group.
– Monthly Repair Café mending bicycles, clothes, crockery and sharpening gardening tools and knives
with potluck picnic and swap shop / bric-à-brac.
– Language classes in Arabic & Spanish from our volunteers (we’re looking for a volunteer to front an Irish one).
– Sewing classes / group.
– Relaxation Sundays.

And finally, we did win some awards (and we are so proud!). We must thank our funders without whom all these activities could not be:
In 2023, we got 2nd place in our section at Dublin City Council’s Citywide Neighbourhood Award 2023!

The Urban Land Institute‘s National Excellence in Place-making Award got us in the front page of the commercial property of the Irish Times. We are currently shortlisted for the LAMA (Local Authority Members Association) All Ireland Community & Council Awards 2024 under their Best Green Sustainable category. Fingers crossed!

Thanks to our trusted funders: Croke Park, NEIC and DCC, and IFSC Inner City Trust and new additions: Wheels We Deliver for pollinators and Central Bank.

So bring it on 2024!

Féile Na Láibe / Mudstock Festival

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Hello!

This weekend come along to Mudisland Community Garden for our first ever Féile Na Láibe. It is free to attend and packed with music, stories, stalls, food, drink and entertainment as Bearla & Gaeilge!

🐶 Dog friendly
🐣 Family friendly
🇮🇪 Loads Irish crafts and gifts to buy on Sunday at our  Christmas market
🍲 Delicious homemade food brought by mudislanders
☕ Hot & cold drink available for fundraising
,🎶 Traditional music
💃 Irish dancing
🧶 Painting & Craft workshops
🥙 Bric à brac
🗣️ Story telling
⚾ GAA demo
🔥Fire show
🎄 Safe for all ages

Musical entertainment is provided by DJ Gav from Solar Sound, Ceoltóirí Chluain Tarbh, Mud island Céilí Band, The Tolka Hot Club Band and more! Discover and support local artists and businesses.

Saturday 2nd of December

Caravan stage:

3 pm intro and part 1 of story, singer on stage.

3.30 part 2 of story dancer on stage.

4 pm part 3 of story musicians on stage .

5.15 fire show

6 DJ Gav (Solar Sound)

Hacienda: 

4pm Traditional music

Forecourt:

GAA demo / arts & crafts for kiddos / bric a brac

Thanks to #Forasnagaeilge, we have some goodies to give away, we also will be making some soup so bring your own brown bread to share!

Sunday 3rd of December

12-5pm Market stalls with delicious food and beverages to buy for our garden fundraiser!

The Tolka Hot Club Band will be performing at the market and we’ll finish of the weekend with DJ Gav from Solar Sound!

Féile na Láibe 🥳🎶💚🇮🇪👏

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Join us in the garden for our first #popup #gaeltacht where we’ll play around as Gaeilge for the craic. Loads to do, to see, people to meet and fun to share!

You will have the chance to get some lingo before the Christmas market the next day 🎄🥳🎶

What’s new?!

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by

We garden every Tuesday and Saturday afternoon 2 to 5 pm and new gardeners are always welcome.

We do an introduction to the garden and planting plan on the first Saturday of each month as and when needed. When it gets warmer and the garden needs more watering we’ll hopefully open up again on Thursday afternoons for gardening, and on Sundays for recreation – we’re all volunteers so it’s dependent on people’s availability.

The Muddy Craft & Crochet Circle meets in the Cottage on Friday afternoons (3-5pm) and our new Repair Cafe was launched on the last Sunday of March, 2.30 to 5.30 pm.  Bicycles were fixed, clothes repaired, crockery mended the Kintsuki way and knives & garden tools sharpened!  The Repair Cafe will continue on the last Sunday of every month. Next one is Sunday 30th of April (same time!).

Repair Café – every last Sunday of the month!

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

On Sundays, from 2:30 to 5:30, join us for our Repair Café. Bring your bike, buggy, clothes, crockery and garden tools to be fixed (hopefully!). You can learn, you can share skills and you will meet a lot of people!

(No ELECTRICAL)

The idea: We throw away vast amounts of stuff – stuff which could get a new lease of life after a simple repair. Lots of people have forgotten that they can repair things themselves or they no longer know how. Repair Cafés are free meeting places where people come together to repair things together. In a local Repair Café, you’ll find tools and materials to help you make any repairs you need on clothes, furniture, electrical appliances, bicycles, crockery, appliances, toys, etc. You’ll also find expert volunteers, with repair skills in all kinds of fields. Visitors bring their broken items from home and in the Repair Café, they start making their repairs with the specialists. It’s an ongoing learning process.

Repair Cafés help people in the community whose skills may not always be valued to get involved again. It helps neighbours from different backgrounds connect with each other and allows valuable practical knowledge to be shared. Repairing things at a Repair Cafe means things are being used for longer and don’t have to be thrown away. This reduces the volume of raw materials and energy needed to make new products.

Discover ChangeX

March in the garden

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Hello

March will be a great month for the garden!

Friday 24th in the morning – free event with Dermot and planting potatoes – all you ever wanted to know about growing spuds!

Saturday 25th – all day extravaganza with the Five Lamps Arts Festival & our annual spring Fair!

Sunday 26th sees the launch of our #RepairCafé! (More on this later).

Five Lamps Arts Festival + Spring Market = day of fun at Mudisland!!

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

This year, Mud Island’s popular Spring Fair will be on Saturday 25th March from 12 to 6 pm- we’ll have a wonderful array of local Arts & Crafts, Artisan Products and Mud Island Merc for sale and it will be a perfect opportunity to support the garden and local producers. The Cottage Cafe, also a great source of income for the garden, will be selling teas, coffees and delicious home baked treats. If you’d like to volunteer an hour or two of your time to help out in the cafe, please let us know at mudislandcommunitygarden@gmail.com and we will be in touch.
We’re also delighted to be collaborating again with the Five Lamps Arts Festival – they’ll be hosting events in the garden from 10 am!
10 to 2 pm – Imagination Playground – for 3 to 12 year olds (or anyone who wants to nourish their inner child!). It’s a ‘breakthrough play space concept designed to encourage child-directed free play, using large blue foam blocks of various shapes, chutes, balls, connectors and more“.
2 to 3 pm – Ceoltoiri Cluain Tarbh band – traditional Irish music
3 to 4 pm – Cikada Circus – two acrobats welcome you into a world that yo-yos between harmonious and the absurd, where lines are blurred between humans and nature…
We look forward to seeing you in the garden on the 25th!

Why not can check out the rest of the Five Lamps Arts Festival?

HERE

Mud Island Open Day, June 11th 2022

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

After a two year absence, we’re delighted to be able to hold our usual annual Open Day.  This year it will be on Saturday 11th June from 2 to 5 pm.  Expect live music, arts & crafts, Wooly Farm animals, refreshments and lots more!  It’ll be a chance to see all the developments in your local community garden, enjoy some refreshments from the newly renovated cottage on site and catch up with friends and neighbours.

We’ll circulate more details as well as a poster for the Open Day shortly. In the meantime, as always, we’re looking for volunteers to help run the Cottage Cafe which is a great fund-raiser for the garden.  We’re also looking for donations of sweet and savoury treats to sell.  If you’d like to commit an hour of your time for the fun of working in the cafe, or would like to bake something for it, please let us know.

See some of you in the garden on the 11th June!