Category: Events

  • Elements of Change Festival, Sat 29th June 2019

    Elements of Change Festival, Sat 29th June 2019

    With the challenges facing us, many movements, organisations and individuals are calling for sustainable change. Alongside global movements what can we do to ensure our local areas are healthy, resilient and support our wellbeing? How can we connect to have meaningful work, local food and energy, and for our communities to be a positive force in these critical times?

    Let’s come together to rethink what actually sustains our communities and what these diverse elements of change can look like.
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    This family-friendly festival weaves a spectrum of elements together for a unique programme of events. From scheduled workshops to Open Space, from walks and talks to collaboratively walking our talk and from musical treats to revolutionary feats – counter the culture of passive audience and bring this community festival to life!

    Themes

    About
    Ticketing & what to bring
    Keynote speakers and performances

    Come on the train (the programme matches the timetable) and bring the whole family for this inspiring event – there will be programmes for all ages! This festival focuses on communal collaboration and as a participant of the festival you are the community!

    Street Feast 2015

    Be part of the discussions, offer a workshop in Open Space slots, let your children inspire you with their own programme, bring an instrument or talent, get involved in a meitheal, host your own conversation cafe, mingle in the diversity of the festival and then share your insights!

    “If we wait for the governments, it’ll be too little, too late; if we act as individuals, it’ll be too little; but if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.” -Rob Hopkins, Transition Towns Movement

    Featuring voices and vocals from:
    Rob Hopkins | Lorna Gold | Kiruu | Mel White Dave Rock | Branwen
    and more…

    Voices Vocals

    Rob Hopkins is an activist and writer on environmental issues, based in Totnes, England. He is best known as the founder and figurehead of the Transition movement, which he initiated in 2005. Rob will join us for a community conversation on the amphitheatre as we discuss the movements of our times and how we can collectively reimagine what we’re moving toward.

    Lorna Gold is a Scottish-Irish academic, climate campaigner, author of Climate Generation and also a mother of two boys. Deeply concerned about our children’s future, Lorna has been heavily involved in the #SchoolStrike4Climate and #FridaysForFuture movement.


    About:

    “Change” in the context of our modern way of life is not a new conclusion, and sustainable living has long been the pursuit of individuals and communities in response to the challenges we face. Many movements are calling for rapid change to ensure a harmonius future… though what that future could look like needs to be as inspiring as the movements that take us there!
    For a community to sustain itself in meaningful, nourishing ways – to foster wellbeing, collaboration and creativity while coming together as a force for positive change – calls for a broader understanding of what it means to be a ‘sustainable community’. It takes much more than a low-impact lifestyle (although low-impact living is still a core element), it takes a healthy culture, a sense of belonging, personal and communal wellbeing, play, shared work and celebration and more to actually create and sustain a community, a network or a movement of people.

    To make the shift from ego-system thinking to eco-system living, we’re calling for us all to come together and to not just build collective resilience, regenerative cultures and purposeful livelihoods… but to celebrate what’s involved in creating that! We want to reimagine a world and culture that helps us respond creatively and appropriately to the threats of climate change, food insecurity, biodiversity and species extinction, mental and physical health epidemics, fossil fuel energy dependence, the housing crisis etc…

    Not to lose sight of the dire situation or urgency of action that’s needed but this is a once-in-a-species opportunity for massive systems change – to reimagine a holistically sustainable future! Let’s not let a good crisis go to waste.

    “Art is not a mirror held up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.” -Bertolt Brecht.

    EoC amphitheatre

    Tickets and what to bring:
    Children aged 6 and under are free and family tickets can accomodate two
    adults and up to three children between 7-15yrs.
    Sorry teenagers, we know you’re not ‘children’, it’s just a ticketing term!

    Adult €35
    Young Adult (16-23yrs) €20
    Children (7-15yrs) €10
    Family (2 Adults, up to 3 Children) €75

    Tickets

     

    Zero waste, sustainable transport and a local economy are all core values so we strongly encourage you bring your own crockery and to come by train (or car-pool if you must drive – limited parking available) and enjoy the delicious food on offer from our ecosystem of growers, chefs and artisan bakers!
    The programme allows for arrivals and departures on the train so please consider leaving the car at home.

    If you have ideas of other ways (great or small) that you would like to get involved then get in touch with aaron@cultivate.ie

  • On Farm Seed Saving Course – 5th October 2019

    On Farm Seed Saving Course – 5th October 2019

    Cloughjordan Community Farm is now offering a new set of half day and full day Farm-Based Seed Saving courses with open pollinated heritage seeds.

    This is a practical, farm based seed saving course, based on selecting from the best varieties you already grow. Importantly, this course teaches seed saving without the requirement for on or off farm fridges.

    Course Tutor:

    Kevin Dudley has been involved in seed saving and sustainable agriculture for many years, and all over the world. His seed work has taken him from the Irish Seed Savers in Clare, to Koanga seeds in New Zealand and an ecological horticulture qualification from the Centre for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems University of California Santa Cruz.

    Course Content, Saturday 5th October: BOOK NOW

    • The course will cover onion, lettuce, brassicas, tomato, parsnip and courgette.
    • Selection, saving, harvesting, processing, storing, overwintering and assessing.

     

    Learning Outcomes

    • Understanding types of seed and family identification in an open pollination, farm-based context.
    • Understanding how to place, plant, pollinate and observe your crops.
    • Knowling best practice in selection, saving, harvesting processing, storing, overwintering and assessing your crops.

     

    Course Cost:

    Please note when you register your booking there is a drop down menu for you to select your ticket type.

    • Course Fee €50 (excludes lunch)
    • Course Fee with lunch €60

    PLEASE INDICATE IN THE SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS FIELD IF YOU HAVE ANY SPECIAL DIETARY REQUIREMENT SUCH AS VEGETARIAN OR VEGAN.

    Course Venue:

    Cloughjordan Community Farm, The Eco Village, Cloughjordan, County Tipperary.

    Cloughjordan Community Farm is a member owned and operated horticulture smallholding in the Irish midlands. About 75 members (plus their children) are supplied with agroecologically produced vegetables twice weekly. Members pay the farmer’s wages and for all requirements via a monthly sub.

    This project is supported by The Heritage Council.


    The Heritage Council logo displayed in accordance with guidelines.

    Irish Seed Savers

    Cloughjordan Community Farm is a guardian for the Irish Seed Savers Association who conserve Ireland’s special and threatened plant genetic resources. Their work focuses on the preservation of heirloom and heritage food crop varieties that are suitable for Ireland’s unique growing conditions. They maintain Ireland’s public seed bank with over 600 non-commercially available varieties of seed.
    http://irishseedsavers.ie

     

    Seed-Saving

     

     

  • SpeakEATsy: Soil & Climate Action, Sat 8th December

    SpeakEATsy: Soil & Climate Action, Sat 8th December

    An evening of food, art, live music, poetry, DJs and dancing as part of the Global Green Christmas Party and World Soils Day. This unique event includes a sumptuous local meal, acoustic music, spoken word and a public conversation in a convivial festival setting, resonant of our set up at the Electric Picnic.

    With sweet sounds from local singer songwriter Nicantsaoi, The HQs – a family folk band who have developed their own combination of folk blues and hillbilly funk to form a unique harmonic sound that will blow your mind…plus gypsy jazz and swing from the Cloughtown Swing Band. Delicious food from the Community Farm and local producers, prepared by Johanna at the Night Orchard.
    A conversation on the topic of healthy soil and climate change with Dr Oliver Moore and Cara Augustenborg, live poetry curated by Mel White and global beats from DJs Pressure Drop and Anacalypsis complete the aesthetic.

    Tickets are limited – Book now at www.cultivate.ie

     

  • Farm Heritage Day – Working Animals on Farms, 22nd Sept 2018

    Farm Heritage Day – Working Animals on Farms, 22nd Sept 2018

    Joining Cloughjordan Community Farm’s Pat Malone and his working horses are Eamon and Gereldine McDonagh (Bovine demonstration), Harry and Mona Bartlelink (Horses and potato harvesting) all day on Saturday 22nd September 2018 on Cloughjordan Community Farm.

    The day will be a meeting of the Irish Workhorse Association after event and a 10 year celebration of Cloughjordan Community Farm. Feile Na n’Ull – the Apple Festival event is also taking place on the same date, same place, which sees a range of apple related events in Cloughjordan.

    For more information contact Pat Malone on (089 2584326)

    www.cloughjordancommunityfarm.ie

    Facebook/cloughjordancommunityfarm
    Cloughjordan Community Farm, Cloughjordan Ecovilllage, Co. Tipperary

     

  • Feile na n’Ull, Apple Festival – 22nd September 2018

    Feile na n’Ull, Apple Festival – 22nd September 2018

    The 3rd annual Apple Festival and Community Fair takes place in the ecovillage at Cloughjordan. This festival, which coincides with the European Day of Sustainable Communities, celebrates the yield of apples, those that tend to the trees, who work the land and those who create delicious food.

    The day features a number of talks, workshops and activities that are open to the public.

    Highlights include delicious local food stalls, an apple baking contest, tours around the ecovillage, its orchards of heritage apples and a Heritage Day highlighting working animals and seed saving on the community farm.

    It has been a great year for apples and at Féile na nÚll there will be a chance to get them juiced. Bring your apples for mashing and pressing and, if you have an apple pie or tart recipe you are proud of, consider entering the Apple Bake contest.

    In the evening there will be a celebratory shared meal and open mic night for the Cloughjordan Community Farm 10th Anniversary Birthday! Bring a dish to share and an instrument to play!

    This exciting programme of special events kicks off at 11am in and around the WeCreate enterprise centre, which is located off the Shinrone Road entrance to ecovillage.

     

    Schedule
    11.00 – Opening
    Stalls and apple pressing open outside WeCreate.
    Entries for Apple Bake Contest can be checked in from 11 until 3.30.
    From 11 until 4 – Community Farm Heritage Day – Working Animals on Farms
    Joining Cloughjordan Community Farm’s Pat Malone and his working horses are Eamonn and Geraldine McDonagh (Bovine demonstration), Harry and Mona Bartlelink (Horses and potato harvesting)

     

    11.30 – Workshop – WeCreate Classroom
    We Need To Talk About Basic Income.
    A basic income is a payment from the state to every resident on an individual basis, without any means test or work requirement. It would be sufficient to live a frugal but decent lifestyle without supplementary income from paid work and will play a central role in a modern, flexible economy. Delivered by FEASTA and Basic Income Ireland.

     

    13.00 – Exhibit – WeCreate Main Space
    Introduction and exhibit on the Sustainable Development Goals
    A short presentation by Davie Philip of Cultivate on the 2030 Agenda and local projects addressing the global goals.

     

    13.30 – Introduction to Seed Saving – Cloughjordan Community Farm
    A short practical workshop on the importance of saving seed with Kevin Dudley.

     

    14.30 – FabLab Introduction – WeCreate
    Visit the WeCreate FabLab and hear what it is all about with Ben Whelan. A fab lab (fabrication laboratory) is a small-scale workshop offering digital fabrication, which is typically equipped with an array of flexible computer-controlled tools with the aim to make “almost anything”.

     

    15.00 – Ecovillage Presentation and Food Tour – WeCreate Main Space
    The story of Cloughjordan Ecovillage presented by members of the Ecovillage Education group followed by a tour of the allotments and RED Gardens (Research gardens), the apple tree walk, the Stop Food Waste composting area, the community farm and community woodlands.

     

    16.00 – Apple Bake Judging

     

    16.30 – Music from local singer songwriter ‘Nicantsaoi’ celebrating the release of her new single “The Apple Walk” 
     
    17.30 – Closing – winners of the Apple Bake announced.

     

    19.30 – Shared Meal in WeCreate celebrating the Community Farm’s 10th Birthday. 
    Bring a dish to share and an instrument to play!

    AppleFeast18

  • More than vegetables!  A photo essay of soil, cover crops and good old farm yard manure.

    More than vegetables! A photo essay of soil, cover crops and good old farm yard manure.

    While what we grow is mostly vegetables, there is lot more to our farm than the edible plants we grow. How we produce our vegetables is important too – we manage the land with a long term vision, so it’s in the best shape to keep producing food into the future. And we do so without harmful inputs – mineral fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides – because of the damage these things do. We care about the soil and about biodiversity, for lots of reasons. Below are some recent pictures of the stuff that’s not vegetables.

    cover crop2

    This is a four plant cover crop. It consists of fodder radish, mustard, rye and coltsfoot grass. This entire field is covered in this cover crop to help build the soil.

    Growing vegetables depletes the soil of nutrients, so we grow this plant combination on a specific field that needs it, and then, we don’t harvest it – so all the goodness goes back down into the soil. This means that next year the field will be able to produce again. A handy side effect of doing this is that it’s great for biodiversity-its positively buzzing with pollinators!

    Growing a cover crop is an alternative to using chemicals like mineral fertilizers, which have a huge negative impact on the environment, both in their use and their production.

    Soil Hands

    Deep SoilCheck out the quality and depth of this soil.

    It’s this good, and this deep – because we grew a cover crop on it last year.

    Soil quality is important – globally soil is being lost due to monocultural farming practices, through urbanisation and from a host of other activities.

    Cover crops also prevent loss of carbon into the air.

    covered manure

    Using well composted farm yard manure is great for the soil and in turn the crop quality. The straw prevents nutrients from being lost into the air, where they also become pollutants. The willow helps soak up the nutrients below.

    horse manure

    Cow manure is especially good because cows are ruminants – they have four stomachs to process their food, which breaks it down more than what are called monogastrics (horses, pigs, sheep). We compost our manure for a year (!) to help break it down and make the nutrients in it more available to the soil and plants.

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  • Feeding Ourselves: Rural Revitalisation through a Cooperative Approach to Farming and Food – 26th & 27th May 2018

    Feeding Ourselves: Rural Revitalisation through a Cooperative Approach to Farming and Food – 26th & 27th May 2018

    Join us for the Feeding Ourselves gathering!  See Full Schedule

    This is the annual coming together of small farmers, community food advocates and anyone with an interest in good food, good farming and rural revitalisation.
    This year’s focus is on community supported agriculture, cooperation, regenerative agriculture, citizen science, better agri-food policies and other people and planet friendly practices such as social farming and high nature value farming.

    Saturday 26th: Feeding Ourselves Conference (Venue: WeCreate Workspace, Cloughjordan Ecovillage)
    Farm Flicks in the evening: Farming on Crisis
    Sunday 27th: Events include: Community Gardens Ireland Gathering | Briefing on the new EU Organic Regulation | Restoring Biological Diversity, Strengthening our Resilience (see pdf for full details)

    Book here: Through NOTS (National Organic Training Skillnet)

    With Ella McSweeney (RTE, BBC) Hannes Lorenzen (European Parliament, ARC2020) Pavlos Georgiadis (GROW Observatory Greece, Kannabio Hemp Co-operative), Helen Doherty (Social Farming Ireland), Clifford Guest (LIT), Aideen McGloin (Social Farming Researcher), Davie Philip (Cultivate), Fergal Anderson (Leaf and Root), Devyn Olson-Sawyer (Cultivate), Seamus Boland (National Rural Network), Oliver Moore (ARC2020, UCC Centre for Co-operative Studies) Noreen Byrne (UCC Centre for Co-operative Studies), Bruce Darrell (RED Gardens) Pippa Hackett (Green Party), Thomas O’Connor (Mana Organic), Róisín Nic Cóil (CSA Ireland), Pat Malone (Cloughjordan CSA), Tamara MacGinty (Cloughjordan CSA), Mimi Pierson (Crawford’s Farm), Julie Lockett (Riot Rye Bakehouse & Breadschool), Joanne Butler (CG Ireland), Kevin Dudley (Cloughjordan CSA), Judith Hitchman (URGENCY), Ben Whelan (GROW, Cultivate), Wendy Bailey (Cluckjordan Eggs / Cloughjordan CSA), Nathalie Markiefka & Sinead Moran (Foodture) and hopefully you!!! Organised by Cultivate and Cloughjordan Community farm, with support from NOTS, UCC’s Centre for Co-operative Studies, ARC2020, GROW Observatory, Social Farming Ireland, Night Orchard, Food Sovereignty Ireland, and CSA Ireland.

    See Full Schedule here

  • SpeakEatsy: A Convivial Evening – Sat 7th April

    SpeakEatsy: A Convivial Evening – Sat 7th April

    Complementary beer from the award winning White Gypsy Brewery.
    A delicious shared Community Farm meal by Night Orchard
    Spoken word poetry from Mel White and Dave Rock
    Live music from Maggie McEntee and Roj Light Conversation with US community activist Brittney Johnson
    Pressure Drop DJs to finish

    Saturday 7th April | 19.00 till late | €25 seated meal and evening entertainment (booking essential) | €15 evening entertainment from 20.30 (with food available to purchase)

    ‘SpeakEATsy’ is a unique evening of music, poetry, food and conversation that is so much more than the sum of its parts. Book in for a delicious shared meal with Community Farm and local produce by Night Orchard. At this SpeakEATsy there will be complimentary beer from the award winning White Gypsy Brewery. Resident poet Mel White, winner of the Cuirt Literary Festival Poetry Slam, will share some of her new work and dynamic spoken word artist and creativity facilitator Dave Rock will enthral and entertain us. There will be music from singer songwriter Maggie McEntee and some new tracks from the frontman Roger Whelan from the Dublin based band The RoJ LiGht. A public conversation will also take place with US community activist Brittney Johnson and Pressure Drop DJs to finish.

    SpeakEATsy is an experience – a happening – the core components are food; art; spoken word poetry; live musicians; a facilitated conversation with notable thinkers, writers or activists; and leading edge DJs to finish. Food, conversation and music are great ways to bring people together – SpeakEATsy emerged from a novel take on these simple ingredients and the desire to cultivate community.

  • WEAVE (Farm Fundraiser) Sat 17th Feb 2018

    WEAVE (Farm Fundraiser) Sat 17th Feb 2018

    Live music from WEAVE and friends in the Parochial Hall, Step Road Cloughjordan

    Join us on Saturday 17th February for an inspiring night filled with the beautiful harmonies of WEAVE, with guest appearances by Ned Kelly(In tune for life) and Maggie McEntee.

    Doors 7.30pm

    Tickets 10euro

    Available from local shops and at the door.

     

     

  • Cloughjordan Party in Galway! Ruaille Buaille meets Pressure Drop in club Áras na Gael, Friday 17th Nov

    Cloughjordan Party in Galway! Ruaille Buaille meets Pressure Drop in club Áras na Gael, Friday 17th Nov

    The good people of Cloughjordan Community farm need to rebuild their barn – or, better still, build a better one!
    This unique community owned and operated farm in Cloughjordan Ecovillage is holding a fun fudraiser with a set of Get-Up-To-Get-Down DJs from the Pressure Drop and Ruaille Buaille stables!!!
    DJs Will Softly and Frank Bouchier of ‘Ruaille Buaille‘ join Ollie Moore and Paul Ryan of ‘Pressure Drop‘ for what is the penultimate Dance Party ever in Club Aras na nGael!
    Global Beats and Reggae Treats will abound – expect afro house, cumbia, dancehall, funk, disco, and what works to make magic feet move and groove!
    Prior to the dancing, there will be a presentaiton on cloughjordan ecovillage and farm, a discussion following on from this, while chai and hot veggie food will also be available – fresh from the farm!
    Tickets just E5!
    Visit the Facebook page here