Author: Madeline Hutchins

Ireland's first Female Botanist

27th July 1808: a significant date

Today marks a significant date in Ellen’s Story for two reasons. On 27th July 1808, 210 years ago, she wrote to fellow botanist, Dawson Turner, to tell him of her discovery of a particular seaweed, Fucus tomentosus, in fruit, and that she had made a drawing of it. She wrote “I had great pleasure in…
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Ellen Hutchins Festival 2018

The Festival is over and will be back next year. We had a wonderful week with some memorable events. The Festival Page HERE has some lovely photos.  

Heritage Trail leaflet and audio guide launched

Leaflets for the Ellen Hutchins Heritage Trail arrived last Friday, 18th May, at the Tourist Office in Bantry, and some of the people most closely involved in producing the Trail collected to be the first to see the leaflets and to listen to the audio guide tracks alongside them. The sun shone as we gathered…
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Launch of Bantry Historical Society’s Journal with Ellen essay

An essay on Ellen Hutchins (1785-1815) Ireland’s First Female Botanist – Botany and Beauty, Landscape and Letters appears in the newly published Volume Three of the Journal of the Bantry Historical and Archaeological Society. On Thursday May 10th at the West Lodge Hotel, Bantry, the Bantry Historical Society launched the new Journal, edited by Dr…
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Extended Deadline

The Supercomputer Naming Competition has had its deadline for voting extended to 25th May.

VOTE ELLEN

VOTE ELLEN bunting and information about the Supercomputer Naming Competition has appeared in two Bantry shop windows – the Bantry Credit Union and the Bantry Bookshop. All Ellen’s plant hunting and her discoveries of new plants were done round Bantry Bay and its neighbouring mountains, so celebrating Ellen’s achievements is also a celebration of Bantry…
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Pioneering young woman scientist

A tribute, on International Women’s Day Ellen Hutchins: pioneering young woman scientist Botany is the scientific study of plants and Ellen Hutchins is rightly regarded as the first Irish female botanist. After schooling in Dublin, around 1805, she returned home to Ballylickey, County Cork and set about her systematic pursuit of the study of plants…
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Latest Ellen Tribute: electrical box / street art in Cork

Mad About Cork added the Ellen Hutchins electrical box street art image to their collection on 20th February 2018. Mad About Cork is a guerilla group in Cork City making positive changes in derelict and run-down urban spaces through street art, guerrilla gardening, & more. The Ellen Hutchins electrical box is the latest in a…
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The Ellen Hutchins Story – the basics

The story of a remarkable young woman. In the early years of the 19th century, in a remote corner of Ireland, a young woman in her twenties, with intermittent poor health, and mostly self taught or tutored from a distance, in the space of just eight years, made a whole series of discoveries of plants…
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Festival: displays continue in Bantry and Kealkil

The third annual Ellen Hutchins Festival took place in Bantry and the surrounding area as part of Heritage Week in August. As a legacy from the Festival, there are now two permanent displays about Ellen. One is in the Tourist Office, Bantry, which is open on Fridays through the winter, and the other is in…
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