Tom MacSweeney: Nature in the Glen thrives when given a touch of help

Sat, 27 Jul, 2024 - 14:54

Without a lot of publicity, people who are concerned about the rivers which flow in and around Cork City and its environs have been doing quite a lot of positive work in regard to the quality, health and protection of these waterways and watercourses.

Last January, I was at a meeting in the Glen Resource Centre on the city’s northside which arose from the Gleann a’ Phúca project started from the interest of artist Julie Forrester in the Glen River valley. As a youngster, I remember days “in the Glen,” where the waterways and insects within them are important.

During the long days of pandemic isolation, Julie Forrester explored the Glen Valley: “The engagement began with a daily blogging project called ‘Narratives with Nature’ which encouraged a deep mapping of the park, logging observations and more personal interactions with the place as the stories of the park began to reveal themselves through a deepening connection with the river, the park, its visitors, and inhabitants, old and new.”

The Cork Rivers Group which evolved, brings together different community groups, organisations and stakeholders across the city and county, who are actively involved, or wish to, protect and care for the rivers and water streams in their local areas.

It has made a submission to Uisce Éireann’s Draft Water Services Strategic Plan 2050: “Our Group’s vision for the future is that rivers and streams in Cork will be restored, regenerated and protected and that they will become integral parts of our community environment which all citizens can access.

“There is growing concern across different local areas for the state of our rivers and waterways and a strong need to take action to protect them and nurture them as part of ourselves. We welcome the WSSP as an ambitious plan for the protection of our water habitats in Ireland. We have outlined observations and recommendations to ensure that a clear pathway to achieve this strategy is implemented through a meaningful collaboration with local communities.

“We welcome the outline of challenges for the plan, but would encourage other important challenges to be considered namely, the lack of awareness and understanding of water eco-systems both at community and authority level and the complexity and fragmentation of services and communication across Irish Water, EPA, local authorities and other relevant bodies.

“These challenges play a crucial role in the achievement of the plan objectives, particularly for the protection of natural environment and sustainability of actions.”

Monster parade

At the Glen this Sunday, the Gleann a Phúca project is holding an educational ‘River Monster Parade’ from 12 to 1pm, which will be staged by the ‘Friends of the Dripsey Rivers’ community group, to emphasise the importance of river insects.

This group also gained traction during the Covid pandemic, developing from an on-line course run by IRD Duhallow. Its members say they “always meet in rivers” and even had their AGM knee-deep in water. They have sampled water quality and examines freshwater life in the Dripsey River Catchment Area.

Sunday’s parade will be the first stage of its ‘Péist Returns project,’ based on the legend of St Finbarr who “banished a troublesome monster from the lake at Gougane Barra, whose wriggling and writhing carved a channel through the land all the way from Gougane to the sea, forming the bed of the River Lee”.

Insects found in the samples are small and hard to examine so the Dripsey Group made large, wearable costume versions of species to get their message across: “In St Finbarr’s time, expelling ‘monsters’ was a worthy activity, but now we understand the value of ‘little monsters’ insects, as vital in the river’s life.

“Bigger things eat them and get eaten and so on, up the food chain to fish, kingfishers, otters and us.”

So, a 6-metre-long green model ‘monster’ or Péist, based on a specific green caddis fly larva found under the Dripsey Bridge was made and will lead the parade, symbolically commencing an ‘insect return journey’ from Cork City to the lake at Gougane Barra from the Glen.

Other slightly smaller replica river insects will include the flattened mayfly larva and stonefly larva, to raise river awareness.

After the parade, those attending will be invited to participate in sampling to examine the health and quality of the Glen River water. That will be followed by a botanical Odyssey of the park.

Two maritime days

Eamon Ryan, the environment minister, announced last week that European Maritime Day, the EU’s annual maritime event, will be held in Cork next May: “The EU meeting point on maritime affairs and the place where ‘Ocean Leaders Meet.’ The United Nations agency, the International Maritime Organisation [IMO] has announced that its World Maritime Day will be on September 25 next year.

“So there will be two Maritime Days to be celebrated. The IMO theme is “Our Ocean — Our Obligation — Our Opportunity.”

The headquarters of the IMO, which has 176 member states is in London.

Both Ireland and Britain are members of the IMO, but London is no longer part of the EU since Britain left after the Brexit decision.