Ellen Hutchins Festival
Annual Report 2020
Despite 2020 being a year like no others, it included new developments on things related to Ellen, botanical art, botany and the cultural coastal heritage of Bantry Bay. In addition many of our materials are designed for self-guided activities and proved well suited to lockdowns.
NGI Exhibition
The exhibition, Drawn from Nature: Irish Botanical Artists, including work by Ellen Hutchins and Shevaun Doherty (the Festival’s resident botanical artist) opened on 7th March, and closed almost straight away because of lockdown, re-opening later in the year. The National Gallery shop stocked the Ellen Hutchins book and the Botanical Art Starter Pack.
A Quiet Tide: historical novel based on Ellen’s story
A highlight of the year was the publication of the novel, A Quiet Tide, by Marianne Lee, based on Marianne’s careful research into Ellen’s life and that time period. It is a debut novel by a young Irish woman, published by an Irish independent publisher, New Island. Marianne weaves fact and fiction together skilfully. There are so many gaps in Ellen’s story and so much that we don’t know that it is fascinating to see this version of what might have been.
A Quiet Tide has had great reviews and good coverage, has been shortlisted for the Kate O’Brien Award at the Limerick Literary Festival and is due to be RTÉ’s Book on One sometime soon. The West Cork Literary Festival’s Advent Calendar included Marianne Lee reading from the novel. This is available on their website and the Ellen Hutchins site.
Virtual Festival 2020
An Amenity Grant from Cork County Council enabled us to produce an online Virtual Festival in 2020, with a daily programme of DIY activities mirroring the live programme that we would have liked to present. There was the launch of the Bantry House Tree and Shrub Trail, a printed and downloadable well-designed leaflet, written by Adam Carveth, Head gardener at Bantry House, helping you identify them by their leaves, and telling you interesting facts including where in the world they come from. Three Zoom events included Ellen: An Inspiration, a conversation with readings, hosted by Finola Finlay (Roaringwater Journal) with novelist Marianne Lee and poet Laura McKenna. Another first was the Heritage on your Doorstep competition we ran for adults and children in botanical art, photographs, poetry and prose inspired by botany on the doorstep or by Ellen’s story. The winning entries were delightful.
Website
We have had excellent feedback on our new look website, which was updated and restructured in 2020. There is a wealth of information there on Ellen’s story, botany and botanical art, including material suitable for home schooling. We are very grateful indeed to Creative Ireland for the funding that made the revamp possible.
Five Projects with FLAG funding
Team Ellen was very busy in Autumn 2020 working on Five Projects, a celebration of five years on from the first Ellen Hutchins Festival in 2015.
Project One – one new book: Mosses and Liverworts – An introductory guide to the Bantry Bay area by Rory Hodd, one of the top bryologists in the country. It encourages you to discover the intriguing and beautiful miniature world of mosses and liverworts, with wonderful photographs, helpful diagrams and clear well written descriptions of the plants. Designed by Jenny Dempsey, it has a commissioned watercolour of a liverwort on the cover by Shevaun Doherty.
In parallel Clare Heardman adapted the material for a small leaflet, suitable for families, available free online and in printed form. Both book and leaflet are the third in our series which so far covers lichens and seaweeds. These guides promote the coastal environment and highlight features often overlooked. They feature non-flowering plants that can be observed throughout the year.
Project Two – two beautiful botany-based activity boxes are in development and will emerge in 2021. An Adventures in Botany: Then & Now Box which includes a hand lens; tiny booklets on Adventures in Botany Then – early 1800s style – and Now; the Heritage Trail, lichens, seaweeds and bryophytes leaflets; a letter as if from Ellen Hutchins (Then) and a postcard from Clare Heardman as Conservation Ranger for Beara (Now).
A seaweed pressing kit has been carefully researched, developed and trialled by Frances Gallagher. It has everything needed to make herbarium quality specimens – just add water and seaweed. With great illustrations, a historical note giving a bit of Ellen’s story, and design by Jenny Dempsey, it is a beautiful item as well as being very practical.
Project Three – what did Ellen wear? We commissioned an early 1800s costume, boots, and baskets in styles that Ellen is likely to have worn and used. These will be useful in displays, living history events and for filming website pieces. Historical re-enacter, Carrie O’Flynn, made the costume and Yvon O’Flynn, the baskets. The research process assembled some great images of both costumes and baskets.
Carrie O’Flynn presented a wonderful Zoom talk, Costumes and Customs: women’s lives in the early 1800s in our virtual Ellen Hutchins Festival 2020 and FLAG money enabled us to edit and enhance this and it and an accompanying short video of Getting Dressed in the 1800s are both on our You Tube channel with links from the website.
Also on the website is a lovely interactive piece researched and written by Carrie and designed by Jenny Dempsey on what did Ellen wear? for children.
Project Four – The new Twelve Tree Trail, written by Clare Heardman (NPWS) is similar in style to the Bantry House one but can be used anywhere there are trees. As well as identification tips, the downloadable leaflet has a host of interesting facts and snippets of information.
Project Five – printed books: Introduction to Seaweeds: a guide to inner Bantry Bay by Frances Gallagher, researched and written in 2019, this was printed in 2020, and looks wonderful. Another classy product, with high quality photos, diagrams and descriptions, lovely design work and cover image.
The FLAG funding also enabled us to produce a print edition of our first book from 2018, Snave Beach Lichen & Tree micro-nature trail by Howard Fox and Maria Cullen.
Ellen Hutchins YouTube channel
The YouTube channel has recordings of two Zoom talks from our Virtual Festival 2020. There are videos of Shevaun Doherty painting and the four short films from 2018. The hand lens one (30 seconds long) has had 3.7k views!
Heritage Council National Water Heritage Award
In October, the Heritage Council announced its National Heritage Awards, and the Festival won the Water Heritage Award for its materials on seaweeds – the small book, free leaflet and the short film, Ellen Hutchins, Botanist of Bantry Bay.
She painted seaweeds from the seashore
In November, the Bantry Historical Society launched a series of short website pieces: Bantry Culture and Creativity 2020. She painted seaweeds from the seashore, is about Ellen.
Funders
With thanks to our funders this year:
Cork County Council: Amenity Grant – making our Virtual Festival 2020 possible
Creative Ireland / Cork County Council – enabling the new website to happen
Fisheries Local Action Group: South – for financing the five projects.
Madeline Hutchins
An organiser of the Ellen Hutchins Festival
9th February 2021