Creating a Wildflower Meadow in Galway city: August 29th

Meadows were once a defining feature of rural Ireland, bringing beauty, colour and a rich biodiversity to our countryside.  These hay fields were populated by a diverse range of wildflowers such as clover, buttercup, daisy, ragged robin, poppy, bird’s-foot trefoil and yarrow providing an important home for bees, butterflies and other pollinators.  However urbanisation, the use of chemical fertilisers and intensive monoculture farming in the modern era has eliminated much of these traditional grasslands leading to a collapse in the numbers of native non-woody plants and a corresponding decrease in the insect populations that fed off them as well as the rest of the interlinked organisms of an ecosystem such as birds and mammals.  

Surveys in Britain have shown that the country has lost over 97% of its meadow habitat since World War Two. Though no national statistics exists in Ireland, nevertheless a similar situation probably occurs here.  

Now the two Galway city-based branches of the Conservation Volunteers are coming together under the supervision of Padraic Keirns to develop an urban meadow in Terryland Forest Park. The project will involve first preparing the ground by cutting back the grass, before the sowing of yellow rattle which is known as the ‘meadow maker’ as it reduces grass growth as well as other native Irish wildflower species as devil's-bit scabious, crow garlic, ragged robin, oxeye daisy, primrose and poppy. 

Once the meadow matures next year, volunteers will annually mow the grass using the traditional hand scythes that will be provided by Michael Tiernan and the members of Cumann na bhFear (Ballinfoile Mór Men’s Shed).

Anyone interested in taking part in this important ecological project should assemble at 10am on Saturday August 29^th at the Quincentennial Bridge entrance to Terryland Forest Park.

Further information can be obtained from Brendan Smith at speediecelt@gmail.com