Stories of Impact
Celebrate the Ellen Hutchins Festival with Family-Friendly Nature Activities in Bantry Bay
Join us in celebrating the life and work of Ellen Hutchins and exploring the rich natural heritage of the Bantry Bay area!
The UCC Sustainability Institute is once again proud to support the 2025 Ellen Hutchins Festival, taking place from August 16th to 24th in the Bantry Bay area. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the festival, which honours the legacy of Ellen Hutchins (1785–1815), Ireland’s first female botanist, renowned for her pioneering work on seaweeds, mosses, and liverworts.
In 2022, the Sustainability Institute renamed our Lee Road Building as the Ellen Hutchins Building, and opened the Ellen Hutchins Reading Room which contains archival material, a number of the seaweed specimens catalogued by Ms Hutchins during her career, as well as books, letters and one of her botanical drawings.
As part of our ongoing commitment to environmental education and community engagement, the UCC Sustainability Institute is sponsoring several family-oriented events during the festival:
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Children’s Nature Art Sessions: Hands-on workshops encouraging young participants to explore and express their creativity through nature-inspired art.
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Windows on Nature: Town Trail: An innovative town trail featuring shop windows in Bantry showcasing small but significant plants—such as mosses, liverworts, lichens, and seaweeds—that Ellen Hutchins specialized in. The trail also includes seaweed drawings, specimens, and archives that tell Ellen’s story.
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Plant Detectives: Family Trail: An interactive outdoor activity designed for families to discover and learn about the diverse plant life in the Bantry Bay area.
For more information on the festival and to view the full programme, please visit the official Ellen Hutchins Festival website: ellenhutchins.com.
Join us in celebrating the life and work of Ellen Hutchins and exploring the rich natural heritage of the Bantry Bay area!