Originally A Zoom performance / talk, Tuesday 14th December 2021 (postponed from 7th December because of Storm Barra), now available as a recorded webinar, price €6 for the online shop HERE How did their friendship grow? An opportunity to live through a moment in time and a slice of two lives, through their letters. In…
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The two films and other new materials here on the early 1800s page of this website are the culmination of a strand of work by Team Ellen over the past two years or more. The Team set out to understand practical details of the period in which Ellen was botanizing and letter writing. What clothes…
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The Festival starts in a week’s time, on Saturday 14th and this year contains a mix of self guided or DIY events, two online art workshops and in-person outdoor events in special places from Bantry through Ballylickey, Coomhola and Glengarriff to Adrigole and up to Kealkil and Gougane Barra. With three ways of taking part,…
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Monday 15th October, 6pm was the Opening of the Ellen Hutchins, Ireland’s First Female Botanist Exhibition. The exhibition was opened by Astrid Wingler, Professor of Plant BiologyHead of Plant Science, School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences and Environmental Research Institute, University College Cork. Carrie O’Flynn, the Historical Re-enactor featured on the poster (see above) was there…
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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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Team Ellen, of the Ellen Hutchins Festival, and Abarta Heritage have been busy this winter completing work on an exciting project, the Ellen Hutchins Heritage Trail. The results of the hard work have paid off, and the Trail Leaflet and Audio Guide are now available free to anyone interested in following in Ellen’s footsteps and…
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Botany is in focus in Bantry, West Cork until Sunday 28th August (Heritage Week) with walks, talks and exhibitions as part of the Ellen Hutchins Festival. Ellen was Ireland’s first female botanist and the young woman who put Bantry Bay firmly on the map as far as botany is concerned, and seaweeds in particular. Seaweeds…
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On Thursday 20th August 2015, an exhibition opened in Bantry House of Ellen Hutchins’ watercolour drawings of seaweeds. This was their first showing in the Republic of Ireland and their home coming. They were drawn by Ellen Hutchins, at Ballylickey, about four miles from Bantry House, on Bantry Bay. Ellen was born at Ballylickey in…
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Dawson Turner, in Yarmouth, England, was preparing a book on seaweeds. He received some of Ellen’s specimens from James Mackay, assistant curator at the Botanic Gardens in Dublin. Turner was delighted and in April 1807 he sent a parcel of plants to Ellen as a thank you. This was the beginning of a seven year…
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This delightful book, The Wild Plants of Bere, Dursey, Whiddy and other Islands in Bantry Bay, published by Sherkin Island Marine Station in 2013, puts on record the variety of wild plants found in this part of Ireland famed for its dramatic scenery, mild climate and sub-tropical gardens. The book examines the history, geography,…
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