President Catherine Connolly has paid tribute to a community project in Co. Kerry focused on growing food, being creative and protecting nature.

During her first official visit to the county since taking office, President Connolly attended the ‘What if We Were Brilliant?' event, hosted by the Brilliant Ballybunion group.

Yesterday's event, also attended by Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport, Patrick O’Donovan, marked the culmination of the community-led, creative climate action initiative.

The Brilliant Ballybunion project, funded by the Creative Climate Action Fund, began two years ago.

500 people attended the event which featured talks, films, artwork, music, along with the launch of a learning brief and new book on the project.

President Connolly said that Brilliant Ballybunion is "a deeply inspiring project which shows how communities can lead the way in growing food, being creative and protecting nature all at the same time".

"Wise governments, I won't identify any government, but wise governments would tune into that; that the solutions are on the ground.

"All we need to do is give recognition to those community groups and resource them, enable them and recognise them. Therein is our future, both local and global," she said.

President Connolly added: "There is no place in our world for them and us. There is no place in our world for a division of us from nature. Our planet will not be saved."

Brilliant Ballybunion

Lisa Fingleton, the project artist, told Agriland that the team was “absolutely delighted” to receive the endorsement of President Connolly.

She said the project was borne out of a small community asking what it can do in the face of multiple crises, including food security, biodiversity loss and displaced people around the world.

Fingleton said the response to the project has been “absolutely extraordinary”, with 13 local collaborators taking part over the two years.

Last year, the project hosted the Ballybunion Bean Festival during which meals were provided through organic, locally sourced food.

The festival celebrated beans and their qualities as a source of food, protein and nitrogen fixing for soil.

"We grew our own beans for the bean festival. From a food perspective, we're very vulnerable here in north Kerry. When we had a storm a couple of years ago, the trucks couldn't get through. The shelves emptied fairly fast.

"It's really asking a small community like ourselves, how do we become more resilient? How do we grow our own food?" Lisa said.

Food

Fingleton runs the Barna Way organic farm and wildlife sanctuary with her wife Rena Blake close to Ballybunion.

"Rena, her mother and her grandmother, they all grew food here in Ballybunion. When Rena was a child, she used to go delivering food around Ballybunion, and everybody had gardens.

"In one or two generations, we have lost our capacity to feed ourselves. Fantastic and all as the convenience is, we really are losing our resilience in terms of food," she said.

"We were asking questions as organic farmers, how can we bring more people on this journey with us?

"It's becoming increasingly difficult for organic farmers, or any farmer, to grow food with climate change, and we need to go back almost to everyone having a little plot of food in their backyard and having something that they can rely on in the climate that we're in,” she said.

Project manager Grainne Toomey said they were "proud of our community and all the commitment that everyone has shown for the last two years".

"This is wonderful recognition the community and the work of Brilliant Ballybunion, and the newly formed Ballybunion Nature Group," she said.

The project team is hoping that their learning brief and new book will help to inspire other local communities to develop similar initiatives.