Ellen Hutchins Festival
Activity Report for the year 2018
Compiled and distributed on 9 / 10 February 2019
2018 was a very busy and very successful year for Ellen Hutchins activities. We had the public launch of the Heritage Trail and Audio Guide that we had worked so hard on the year before. We held the fourth Ellen Hutchins Festival in August with a lovely mix of established events and new ones. In the Autumn, we mounted an informative and stylish exhibition in the Boole Library at University College Cork (UCC) and ran a full programme of associated events. With wonderful help from both established and new members of Team Ellen, we researched and produced schools materials, three guides on lichens and made four short films, all of which are available on our website, www.ellenhutchins.com
By the year end, we have done all that we had set out to do at the start of the year, and much more besides. We have also been told about all sorts of Ellen related initiatives in parallel with our activities; some we can reveal and some are secret.
Ellen as a supercomputer? Schools materials
In February 2018 we heard that Ellen was on a shortlist of six Irish scientists in a competition for school children to name the new Irish supercomputer. This spurred us to bring forward our plans to produce a website with material on Ellen’s story suited to primary and secondary school students. UCC Library, the Botany Department at Trinity College Dublin and Bantry Credit Union provided funding. Our graphic designer Jenny Dempsey and Madeline worked almost non-stop for ten long days, and the website and the Vote Ellen campaign were launched on 9th March between International Women’s Day and Mothering Sunday. (The supercomputer was named Kay, after an Irish woman “human computer”.)
Ellen Hutchins Heritage Trail and Audio Guide
These were launched in May, with the Ellen Hutchins Festival team, the team from Abarta Heritage and our ‘cover girl’ Breda Moriarty outside the Bantry Tourist Office and on the beach below Blue Hill. Both the Heritage Trail and the Audio Guide are available free on the website and well worth a look and a listen. We have had some lovely feedback on them.
Micro Nature Trail and Lichens Guides
FLAG South and Heritage Council funding came through, enabling us to ask Howard Fox and Maria Cullen to survey and report on non-flowering plants at Ardnagashel and lichens at Snave. From this they developed a detailed guide to Lichens and Trees at Snave, and material that Clare Heardman turned into a Micro Nature Trail on Lichens on Snave Beach, suitable for families and children. Paul Whelan contributed text and photographs for an Introduction to Lichens. Jenny Dempsey worked her design magic on the guides, and the results can be found on the website, under the Botany / Learning to Love Lichens tabs.
Four Short Films
FLAG South, Heritage Council and UCC Library funding also enabled us to work with two highly skilled film makers, Colm Rooney and Rich Maskey, to make four short films, one on Learning to Love lichens, another on How to Use a Hand Lens, and using Ellen’s story to encourage an exploration of the coast, particularly at Bantry Bay. The films were part of the UCC exhibition and are now on You Tube and the Ellen Hutchins website.
Ellen Hutchins Festival 2018
The Festival was a great mix of repeats of successful events and new offerings. Carrie O’Flynn, Historical Re-enactor from Cork City, with Anne Secord from Cambridge University, and Madeline ran a Living History event on Letter Writing at the SeaView House Hotel, Ballylickey (on Ellen’s home territory). Carrie in costume came to the ever popular Whiddy Island Seaweed Event with Susan Steele. Our ‘resident’ botanical artist, Shevaun Doherty, ran workshops in Bantry House and at Future Forests, and a demo in Mannings Emporium. Clare led the Coorycommane Loop Walk again, Jo Denyer led a guided walk on mosses and liverworts in Glengarriff Woods, and Howard Fox and Maria Cullen gave a guided Micro Nature Trail of the lichens on Snave Beach. There were boat trips round inner Bantry Bay, one in a flotilla of small motor boats, seeing the places where Ellen collected seaweeds.
Ellen Hutchins Exhibition in the Boole Library, University College Cork: Oct to Dec 2018
This was a great success, with wonderful comments in the visitors’ book. It was clean, clear and stylish; great work by Jenny again! You could sit in a period chair and read some of Ellen’s letters. On a table was a folder of (facsimiles of) Ellen’s specimens, and a microscope to look at details of lichens. We ran a full programme of events, with Letter Writing at Nano Nagle Place, Archives Sessions, Lichen and Cryptogam Walks and Seaweed Tasting.
Ellen Hutchins and her Cork City Connections: Talk: November 2018
Madeline gave a talk for the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society at the Crawford Arts Centre, Cork. Madeline’s research found that, despite there being botanists and a botanical garden in Cork City at the time, Ellen’s links to them were very limited and she may never have visited the City. There will be an article on this in the Society’s 2019 Journal.
“How did her garden grow?” Talk at the Edward Worth Library conference, Dublin
“How did her garden grow?” Talk at the Edward Worth Library conference, Dublin In November, at a conference on Gardens and Gardening in Early Modern Ireland, Madeline gave a talk on Ellen’s gardening and its links to botany and her love of plants.
Transcription of the last few Letters
UCC Library kindly provided the money to enable the Transcription Service to complete this job, and the last few letters revealed some interesting new information, including Ellen’s suggestions to Dawson Turner on how the seaweeds might be reorganised.
Others’ Initiatives linked to Ellen
During the past year the Ellen Hutchins Festival Team were contacted by a woman writing a historical novel based on Ellen’s story, two women planning to make a drama/ documentary film about her, and a poet basing a series of poems on her story.
Madeline Hutchins, Ellen Hutchins Festival, 9th Feb 2019 www.ellenhutchins.com