Festivals & Events
Festival in Heritage Week, exhibitions and events
The Ellen Hutchins Festival, during Heritage Week in August in the Bantry Bay area, is an annual celebration of Ellen’s life and work, botany, botanical art, and the biodiversity and beauty of Bantry Bay. There are guided nature walks, botanical art workshops, exhibitions, boat trips, seaweed events, talks, living history events, a Wild Child Day,
self-guided trails and botanical art demonstrations.
The 2026 Ellen Hutchins Festival will run from Saturday 15th to Sunday 23rd August in the Bantry Bay area. See the Festival page HERE
The Ellen Hutchins Festival Team occasionally mounts exhibitions celebrating Ellen
Hutchins and team members give talks and run events. See the Exhibitions page. So far talks have taken place in
Bantry, Castletown Berehaven, Cork City, Dublin and London.
See Current & Upcoming Events HERE
There is a Reading Room with Ellen Hutchins display, reference and archival material available to visit by appointment. It is in the Ellen Hutchins Building of the Environmental Research Institute at UCC in Cork. There are also Open House sessions (next one on Saturday 6th February 2027).
By arranging a visit, you have the opportunity to see the current display in the Ellen Hutchins Archives Cabinet of a drawing, three seaweed specimens and letters of Ellen’s.
There is a small display about letter writing in the early 1800s as the main means of communication between scientists. The Reading Room has reference and display material about botany, botanical art, the biodiversity of Bantry Bay and Ellen’s life and work.
The Ellen Hutchins Building is on Lee Road, Cork, with a car park. To arrange a visit (week days in term time) use Contact Us at the bottom of this page.