Monster parade among events at Glen River Park next weekend

The Gleann a’ Phúca creative climate action project is hosting an educational River Monster Parade of giant human-sized replica water insects on Sunday, July 28, at the Glen River Park.

The parade, staged by the Friends of the Dripsey Rivers community group, starts at 12 noon and will showcase several ‘river monsters’ including a 6m-long giant green monster, modelled on a specific green caddis fly larva found under the Dripsey Bridge.

The Friends of the Dripsey Rivers group grew out of an online course run by IRD Duhallow during Covid, which since then has seen members kick-sampling under bridges in order to assess the water quality and examine populations of freshwater life.

Due to the fact the insects found are so small and hard to examine, the group started making larger, wearable costume versions of some of the ‘monsters’ enlarged to human size.

Sunday’s monster parade in the Glen River Park is the first stage of the group’s Péist Returns project, based on the legend of St Finbarre who banished a monster from the lake at Gougane Barra.

Its wriggling and writhing is said to have carved a channel through the land all the way to the sea, thus forming the bed of the river Lee.

The group explained: “In St Finbarre’s time, expelling monsters was a worthy activity, but now we understand the value of little monsters as being vital in the river’s life, as many bigger things eat them and get eaten in their turn, and so on, up the food chain to fish, kingfishers, otters and us!”

After the parade, from 1pm-2pm, attendees are invited to participate in kick-sampling with the Gleann a’ Phúca volunteers.

From 2pm to 4pm, participants are invited to go on a botanical Odyssey of the park with botanist Chelly O’Donovan and artists Spoon and Bloom.

They invite participants to join them on the Odyssey with Chelly and to enjoy an afternoon of stories, drawing and discovery, and afterwards, participants will come together to collectively map the journey and their findings.

Each of these Gleann a’ Phúca events is free to attend.