Come join us for the Ellen Hutchins Open Morning at the Sustainability Institute, UCC

21 Jan 2026

If you are within reach of Cork City on Saturday 7th February, join us for a great botany and Ellen themed set of activities designed for all ages at our annual Ellen anniversary event. Free, drop-in, easy parking.

Discover the fascinating world of plants at a fun, hands-on morning of botany activities with seaweeds, mosses, plant leaves and stems. Activities designed for curious minds of all ages (including children aged six and up), you can drop in for a short visit or stay and explore all morning. Presented by Ellen Hutchins Festival team members and UCC’s Sustainability Institute in the Ellen Hutchins Building. 

Bryophytes up close
Explore the wonderful micro-world of mosses and liverworts with Fionnuala O’Neill, an experienced botanist with a PhD in plant ecology from UCC. Using microscopes and hand lenses explore all their fascinating details and complexity and discover how they grow and reproduce. 

Seaweeds and seaweed pressing
See beautiful examples of local seaweeds and learn about them. Can you name their holdfast, stipe and frond? Frances Gallagher will demonstrate how to make seaweed specimens, with a method almost the same as that used by Ellen Hutchins 220 years ago, except for one magic, modern ingredient. 

Creative Adventures with Leaves and Crayons
Nature artist, Sue van Coppenhagen, will lead art sessions for 6- to 12-year-olds exploring leaves – their shapes, sizes and their vein patterns. 

Plant Detectives: Leaves and Stems
Can you answer the questions posed about what uses we make of stems and what foods we get from leaves? Explore leaves using smell as well as sight. 

Ellen’s Drawings of Seaweeds
See framed reproductions of a dozen or more of Ellen’s wonderfully detailed and accurate watercolours of seaweeds. 

Resources, Displays and Archives
The Ellen Hutchins Reading Room has a collection of books on botany, biodiversity and caring for plants and the planet. There is a display, a short film and information on Ellen’s life and work as botanist of Bantry Bay.

The Ellen Hutchins Archives Cabinet and a tabletop display will show one of Ellen’s original watercolour drawings of seaweed, three of her seaweed specimens, letters she wrote, books she owned, as well as botany books related to her story. 

See if you can read Ellen’s handwriting and find out what she wrote to her brothers. See a small exhibition of correspondence from the early 1800s, including postage stamps and seals. 

Meet the Ellen Hutchins Festival team leaders, Clare Heardman and Madeline Hutchins. Pick up free botany leaflets and buy the Festival publications and hand lenses.

Open Morning at the Ellen Hutchins Reading Room and Archives

Saturday 7th February from 10:30am to 12:30pm 
at the Ellen Hutchins Building, Lee Road, Cork T23 XE10 with easy parking
Free of charge

A joint event of the Ellen Hutchins Festival and the Sustainability Institute of UCC, celebrating Ireland’s first female botanist, Ellen Hutchins of Bantry Bay (who died on 9th February 1815), and marking the International Day of Women and Girls in Science on 11th February.

Ellen Hutchins 2026 Poster