OCEAN & ENVIRONMENT
Creative Places West Cork Islands
DISPATCH #1:
Of Lobster Pots and Wind Farms
Of Lobster Pots and Wind Farms
09 February 2026
The islands are always in conversation with the weather, more explicitly so than the mainland.
The day we travelled out to Sherkin - 1st February, Saint Brigid’s Day or Imbolc - the sun stood proud in the sky, the flat sea was electric blue, and the ferry glided across. The following day, on the return to the mainland, the wind whipped the water into white horses and the Beaufort scale was at 7. The sky was steely grey and myself, Paula and Eoin got lashed with rain on a walk to St Mona’s Holy Well on the east of the island, arriving dripping wet to the harbour to catch the ferry. They cancelled the evening crossings.
This drastic difference from one day to the next underlines the particular conditions of island living, where a change in the weather can quite suddenly cut you off from the mainland. Sherkin has no shop, so having several days worth of food in reserve is always advisable.
There were five of us in a group on the ferry out, and two more were waiting on the island. This was the first in-person meeting of the Ocean & Environment project: a group of artists, supported by a panel of islanders, who will be working across a number of the West Cork islands over 2026/2027. The objective is to engage with the communities living there and the conditions of the islands themselves, responding creatively under the theme ‘ocean and environment’.
Though the islands seem perhaps more vulnerable to stormy weather and issues like coastal erosion, we on the mainland have been feeling the force of the elements with the weight of a sledgehammer in recent years, as climate change increases the instances of violent storms and flooding. The Ocean and Environment project is very timely in this context; in many ways, the precarity and challenges of small, coastal island living are increasingly relevant to the bigger island of Ireland as we navigate the fallout of climate chaos.
There were five of us in a group on the ferry out, and two more were waiting on the island. This was the first in-person meeting of the Ocean & Environment project: a group of artists, supported by a panel of islanders, who will be working across a number of the West Cork islands over 2026/2027. The objective is to engage with the communities living there and the conditions of the islands themselves, responding creatively under the theme ‘ocean and environment’.
Though the islands seem perhaps more vulnerable to stormy weather and issues like coastal erosion, we on the mainland have been feeling the force of the elements with the weight of a sledgehammer in recent years, as climate change increases the instances of violent storms and flooding. The Ocean and Environment project is very timely in this context; in many ways, the precarity and challenges of small, coastal island living are increasingly relevant to the bigger island of Ireland as we navigate the fallout of climate chaos.
1. Pottery shards and rushes.
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2. Sam's bag on the low stone wall, with Rebecca Solnit's A Book of Migrations
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The group meet at the community hall and share a pot of tea on the low wall outside in the sunshine. Discarded piles of rushes from the Brigid’s Cross workshop of the day before lie scattered in the mud behind us, and shards of pottery collected on the wall form an accidental sculpture. There happens to be a talk on a low impact fisheries pilot taking place on the island that day, and we set off as a group towards the island hostel North Shore where it’s happening.
On the way, we pass herbalist Eoin Marshall’s garden and drop in for a look. He has been developing a forest garden planting, a system which sees plants, often edible or medicinal, grown in a way that mimics a forest environment. These conditions make for more resilient growth, with polycultures (guilds of mutually-beneficial plants) protecting against pests and disease, and helping to build more fertile soils.
I spot what looks like salad burnet, a highly productive perennial salad that is evergreen. Edible perennials are beacons of resilience in a changing climate and in the face of the soil degradation caused by conventional agricultural practices. Perennials grow themselves, requiring little in the way of inputs, and produce food year after year without the need for the disruptive cycle of ploughing, fertilising and sowing. Planting an edible perennial garden on an island is a concrete act of resilience.
On the way, we pass herbalist Eoin Marshall’s garden and drop in for a look. He has been developing a forest garden planting, a system which sees plants, often edible or medicinal, grown in a way that mimics a forest environment. These conditions make for more resilient growth, with polycultures (guilds of mutually-beneficial plants) protecting against pests and disease, and helping to build more fertile soils.
I spot what looks like salad burnet, a highly productive perennial salad that is evergreen. Edible perennials are beacons of resilience in a changing climate and in the face of the soil degradation caused by conventional agricultural practices. Perennials grow themselves, requiring little in the way of inputs, and produce food year after year without the need for the disruptive cycle of ploughing, fertilising and sowing. Planting an edible perennial garden on an island is a concrete act of resilience.
3. Salad burnet in Eoin Marshall's forest garden.
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4. Oyster bags by Kinish Harbour on Sherkin.
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A little further on from Eoin’s garden we pass a trailer stacked with oyster bags, recently hauled from the water. The bags are made from metal mesh - someone compares them to giant teabags - and each one conceals a clutch of dank, ribbed shells, bearded with seaweed. The oysters are farmed in the sheltered Kinish Harbour on the north side of the island by Robbie Murphy, who moved to Sherkin from Cork with his parents in the 70s, one of a cohort who migrated from the urban centres of Cork and Dublin at that time to start a new life on the island.
5. Traditional willow lobster pots at the LIFP talk.
At the talk on the low impact fishing pilot (LIFP), we learn that the purpose of the scheme is to encourage the reintroduction of traditionally made willow lobster pots. Oscar, who gives the talk, is part of the community development group on Bere island and is also one of the islanders making up the advisory panel for Ocean & Environment.
The hope for the LIFP is that it can demonstrate the environmental benefits of returning to using willow pots, while also generating new income streams for islanders - through pot-weaving workshops, increased tourism due to the craft, and the establishment of willow plantations on the islands so that the raw material is locally available. As Oscar himself says, "as anyone who lives on an island will know, it's rare that one job will do you."
It’s a small pilot, taking in six lobster fishers from across the islands. A modest trial of a modest technology - handwoven pots made from biodegradable materials. As the talk progresses, we learn that the pilot is being funded through the North Irish Sea Array (NISA) Sustainable Fishing Community initiative. NISA is a substantial proposed wind farm off the east coast, due for completion by 2030. It’s being developed by Statkraft, a European renewable energy firm owned by the Norwegian state.
The hope for the LIFP is that it can demonstrate the environmental benefits of returning to using willow pots, while also generating new income streams for islanders - through pot-weaving workshops, increased tourism due to the craft, and the establishment of willow plantations on the islands so that the raw material is locally available. As Oscar himself says, "as anyone who lives on an island will know, it's rare that one job will do you."
It’s a small pilot, taking in six lobster fishers from across the islands. A modest trial of a modest technology - handwoven pots made from biodegradable materials. As the talk progresses, we learn that the pilot is being funded through the North Irish Sea Array (NISA) Sustainable Fishing Community initiative. NISA is a substantial proposed wind farm off the east coast, due for completion by 2030. It’s being developed by Statkraft, a European renewable energy firm owned by the Norwegian state.
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6. Sam's notes from the weekend.
There is somehow a tension in this; a large-scale, hard infrastructure project funding a human-scale ‘soft’ infrastructure pilot. Though mired in planning complications, large-scale wind farms off the coast of Ireland are seen as a significant part of the solution to the problem of reaching our climate targets by 2030 - a fast track towards decarbonisation. Though they are indeed a part of the picture, wind farms do not address other critical issues like biodiversity loss and food security. And there is the risk that large-scale infrastructural projects like these distract from the urgent need for nuanced, on-the-ground, human-scale restoration of our environments by the local populations living in them, across the country. If we keep paving over our green surfaces and using Roundup, no amount of wind turbines will protect us from the collapse of ecosystems that declining insect populations herald, now projected to begin happening by 2030.
7. Louise's notes taken during the LIFP talk.
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8. Traditional willow lobster pot at the LIFP talk.
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The lobster pots are biodegradable, a form of ‘soft’ infrastructure, just as a perennial food forest is. There is culture and history attached to them, and to their use on the islands. They are a potential solution that is particular to their local environment. There is some synchronicity to the Ocean and Environment group having their first meeting in the context of the LIFP talk - projects like this operate on the micro-level, uncovering the richness of human relationship with the environment. And this is what most urgently needs repairing - our broken relationship with the living context that sustains us.
As a group, we Ocean and Environment participants meet and spend time together and share a meal. People also share their thoughts and impressions of the islands, based on initial visits made over the winter just gone. We're meeting on Sherkin, but the projects will be spread across Heir Island, Cape Clear, Long Island, Whiddy Island, Dursey Island and Bere Island.
Though they're in their early stages, what the projects have in common is their focus on the hyperlocal; the (sometimes buried) knowledge of the island landscapes and the relationship islanders have with them - forgotten rights of way, inshore fishing routes, almost-lost Irish place names that document embodied experience of the landscape ('the falling down place'). Though the projects will undoubtedly take different forms as they develop, they each have this deep and personal engagement with the particularity of place as their starting point. We need this nuanced understanding of environment at the microcosmic, at the human scale, more than ever.
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Words
Rachel Donnelly
Images
Cover image: Louise Manifold
Images 1, 2, 3 and 5: Rachel Donnelly
Images 4, 7 and 8: Louise Manifold
Image 6: Samuel Arnold Keane
This is the first in a series of written reflections that will follow the Ocean & Environment projects as they unfold over the coming year, connecting the themes of the project across the islands to wider questions of how to build resilience in the face of climate change.
The Ocean & Environment artists are Samuel Arnold Keane, William Bock, Eoin Heaney, Saoirse Higgins and Louise Manifold. Writer in residence for the project is Rachel Donnelly.
This essay is a commission supported by Cork County Council's Creative Places West Cork Islands programme, under its Ocean & Environment initiative, With thanks to the West Cork Islands Creative Places Partnership for their continued support.
Though they're in their early stages, what the projects have in common is their focus on the hyperlocal; the (sometimes buried) knowledge of the island landscapes and the relationship islanders have with them - forgotten rights of way, inshore fishing routes, almost-lost Irish place names that document embodied experience of the landscape ('the falling down place'). Though the projects will undoubtedly take different forms as they develop, they each have this deep and personal engagement with the particularity of place as their starting point. We need this nuanced understanding of environment at the microcosmic, at the human scale, more than ever.
//
Words
Rachel Donnelly
Images
Cover image: Louise Manifold
Images 1, 2, 3 and 5: Rachel Donnelly
Images 4, 7 and 8: Louise Manifold
Image 6: Samuel Arnold Keane
This is the first in a series of written reflections that will follow the Ocean & Environment projects as they unfold over the coming year, connecting the themes of the project across the islands to wider questions of how to build resilience in the face of climate change.
The Ocean & Environment artists are Samuel Arnold Keane, William Bock, Eoin Heaney, Saoirse Higgins and Louise Manifold. Writer in residence for the project is Rachel Donnelly.
This essay is a commission supported by Cork County Council's Creative Places West Cork Islands programme, under its Ocean & Environment initiative, With thanks to the West Cork Islands Creative Places Partnership for their continued support.
Visit Creative Places: West Cork Islands for more information on the overall Ocean & Environment project.