Speech at the 25th Anniversary of Terryland Forest Park
Terryland Forest Park, Galway, 5th June 2025
Mayor Peter Keane,
Members of the Oireachtas,
Councillors,
A cháirde,
Is cúis áthas dom féin agus Saidhbhín beith libh inniu anseo i bPáirc Foraoise Thír Oileáin inár gcathair na Gaillimhe.
[May I say how delighted Sabina and I are to be present with you all today here in Terryland Forest Park in the city we call home, Galway.]
We celebrate today the important milestone that is the 25th anniversary of the opening of Terryland Forest Park. Owned and managed by Galway City Council and assisted by Tuath volunteers, today Terryland Forest Park represents a wonderful urban mosaic of woods, meadows, wetlands and other natural habitats that also serves as an outdoor classroom and laboratory for schools and universities.
As well as educational and recreational amenity value, the park also helps the country to meet its international commitments in tackling the climate and biodiversity crises by acting as a carbon sink and wildlife sanctuary.
Launched in January 2000 as the largest such project in Ireland, with a plan to involve the citizens of Galway City in planting 500,000 native Irish trees in an area of 120 acres, we are all indebted to those who campaigned for its opening, under the incredibly inspirational leadership of Brendan Smith who led that campaign starting in 1995. I am delighted that Brendan is here with us today. Traoslaím libh.
The campaign for the park came from residents of the Ballinfoile-Tirellan suburb who, concerned about the ongoing construction of roads and housing estates and the degenerating of Greater Galway into an urban sprawl of tarmacadam and concrete, initiated a campaign to save the valley along either side of the Terryland River from built development.
As well as Brendan Smith’s crucial role in the park’s development, we should recall the positive roles played by individuals such as Joe Gavin, then-manager of Galway Corporation, Gus McCarthy who was the Galway City Executive Planner at the time, environmentalist Gordon D’Arcy, and Parks Superintendent Stephen Walsh.
Institutions like Terryland Forest Park are a response to the increased levels of urbanisation and the threats from climate change and biodiversity loss that are now, sadly, all too real. A forest in the city represents a new and innovative solution to maintain and improve the quality of life in our cities.
Public green space has a positive effect on biodiversity, climate change, wellbeing and air quality, ensuring that cities become better places to live and work. That is why I was delighted to lend my support in 2020, by my becoming an official patron, to the movement towards transforming Galway into a National Park City, the aim of which is to make our urban environment healthier, more sustainable, harmonious, beautiful, equitable, with biodiversity-rich environments of quality green and blue spaces where people value, benefit from, and are strongly connected to the rest of Nature.
By the middle of the current century, 70 percent of the world’s population will be living in urban areas. Today, many urban areas are already suffering from the negative effects of climate change and biodiversity loss as well as other negative trends such as weakening social cohesion and deepening inequality.
By 2050, the negative consequences of climate change on living conditions will be dramatic, owing to higher temperatures, more frequent and excessive rainfall with consequential flooding, more frequent and more severe storms, and more widespread and excessive drought.
It is for this reason that planting trees is one of the best measures we can take to mitigate against the worst consequences of climate change.
Terryland Forest Park plays a critical role in Galway’s working towards becoming a ‘green city’ as an urban area designed with sustainability at its core, focusing on the preservation of the natural world while also considering the social, physical, and economic health of its inhabitants.
May I take this opportunity to congratulate all those involved in the Tuatha in Terryland Park being awarded the Galway City Mayor’s Award for Environment and Sustainability. To quote the Mayor, if I may,
“Through their tireless volunteer efforts, [the Tuatha] have significantly enhanced a local urban park, committing to ongoing nature restoration, conservation projects, and environmental education”.
Last month, Terryland Forest Park was runner-up in the Community Woodlands Award at the RDS Forestry Awards ceremony in Dublin. The judges were particularly struck by the range of volunteers – from international students attending local third-level colleges, to scouts and local companies who allow staff carry out work in the forest park on a weekly basis during working hours. May I congratulate everyone involved, including Galway’s City Manager, Leonard Cleary, for these achievements.
Over the last 25 years, 100,000 trees have been planted in the park, and it is now extensively used by local schools and clubs as both an outdoor lab and an outdoor school.
Galway itself was recognised as a European Green Leaf city in 2017, making it the first Irish city to receive that title. This designation, which is specifically for smaller cities that are making a significant impact on the environment, acknowledges the city’s commitment to sustainable policies and efforts to promote environmental awareness. I am sure that the establishment of Terryland Park played a role in this designation. Galway serves as a model for other cities seeking to improve their environmental performance.
Perhaps the unique creative feature of Terryland Park is its Slí na bhFilí or Poets’ Trail. Thanks to the vision of James Harrold, then the Galway City Arts Officer, supported by Stephen Walsh of Galway City Parks, the late Michael Longley and Maidhc Danín Ó Sé were the first writers to plant trees on what has become over time a Slí na bhFilí along the banks of the River Corrib. It is all the more moving to have this tree here given Michael Longley’s recent sad passing.
May I say that I am delighted and honoured to have been asked to plant a tree here on this trail today. Slí na bhFilí will comprise inscriptions from poems written by Galwegian poets on the theme of nature. The stone plaques, inscribed by Denis Goggin and Ray O’Flaherty, will be placed on large rocks that are to be located along the trail, and I am so honoured that the first inscription to be unveiled are a selection of stanzas from my poem, “The Mountain”, a poem written for my daughter Alice-Mary and first published in The Season of Fire in 1993.
Now part of Slí na bhFilí, I hope that these verses may perhaps give walkers a moment for quiet reflection as they make their way along the trail.
I am delighted to hear that the second plaque that will be installed shortly will be an inscription from a poem by Eva Bourke, a founder member of the Cúirt International Festival of Literature whom I know very well.
Another welcome addition to the park is the newly constructed fairy ring, consisting of beautiful painted giant mushrooms, which has been recently constructed by volunteers in the middle of the Oak Grove planted in 2000 by the people of Galway and where I am officially launching the park’s anniversary celebrations.
So-called “fairy rings” are a natural phenomena, consisting of circular areas of mushrooms. In Irish folklore though, they are also strongly associated with the Sídhe. This structure will henceforth be used regularly by schoolchildren as part of the forest park’s outdoor classroom.
May I say that the exhibition of paintings by local schoolchildren on the theme of Terryland Forest Park that has been installed on the pathway leading into the Oak Grove is also a beautiful initiative. These are works of art painted by the pupils of three local schools in early 2000 in advance of the opening of the park on the 12th of March when 3,000 people of all ages came to plant the first trees.
Thanks to Brendan Smith’s careful storage, and the support of the City Council, 50 of these paintings are now displayed as digital scans. I understand that volunteers have visited the same schools over the last few weeks and have helped the present generation of the pupils to paint or draw their ideas of how the park will be in 25 years. A selection of these artworks is also on display today, and I am most grateful for all the effort that has gone into these wonderful artworks which showcase so much promising talent.
May I say how appropriate it is that the reconnection of the world of the arts with trees and nature has occurred most successfully here in Galway, a city that has for decades kept alive the ancient Celtic bardic respect for Mother Earth. Here in this urban landscape, ecologists and artists from all fields often came from the same family and shared the same belief.
Mar fhocail scoir, ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil le chách a bhí bainteach san ócáid seo. Go mbeidh Slí na bhFilí agus Páirc Thír Oileáin mar fhoinse sláinte, áineas agus b’fhéidir fiú tarchéimnitheacht sna blianta romhainn.
[May I conclude by thanking all those involved with today’s event. May the Poet’s Trail and Terryland Park continue to be a source of recreation, wellbeing, and perhaps even transcendence for years to come.]
Beir beannacht.
