What is an Irish Garden?

What is an Irish garden? There is no such thing as a garden in the Irish tradition apart from within the monastic tradition of food production. Gardens are an imported concept to this island. People travel from all over the world to visit Irish gardens but what they are actually seeing are gardens from the English, Italian and French traditions. The land to us, is so much more than a pretty garden. It is full of mythology history, pain, poetry, longing, loss and passion. This connection we have with the land is a deep and intrinsic connection that is expressed in our language, writings, poetry, art and music. However, it is rarely expressed in our garden designs.

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The Future of Garden Design

Tearmannsi

Garden design is a fickle sport. Trends are set by the latest styles in fashion, music and art. However, gardens (if you are lucky enough to have one) are the only piece of land we are personally responsible for in this world. It is the only chance, most of us have to make a connection with nature in todays busy world.

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Monart

Monart


Liam Griffin is a legend in County Wexford. One of the counties inspiring forces, driving and motivating Wexford to win the hurling final in 1996. As the proprietor of Monart, he is an inspirational man and his vision was to create a world class destination spa resort in this beautiful woodland setting in Enniscorthy. It’s been wonderful to watch his vision come true.

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A Day in the Life of a Garden Designer

Diarmuid Gavin asked me to write an article on my day to day life as a designer……

Now if I did that, you would probably get a run down of nappy changes, taking out bins, cooking industrial quantities of Spaghetti bolognese, spending hours as a power ranger and a few scribbles on the drawing board in between, so I don’t think that would make for an inspiring read! There are stretches of madness where I put my head down after getting an idea and don’t come up for air for a week or so, at least until the kids demand their mammy back!

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