Since 2008 the Burrenbeo landscape trust has been showing how farmers can work with nature to benefit all concerned. The Hare’s Corner, a book spearheaded by the group, tells stories of its Farming Ambassadors and of the power of community to enhance local areas. JUDY MURPHY hears how it was created, using poetry, prose and art.

“A testament to the strength of local action,” is how former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, describes The Hare’s Corner; Making Space for Nature, a unique book spearheaded by the Kinvara-based landscape charity, Burrenbeo.

This beautifully illustrated, hardback publication celebrates farmers, community groups and schools across the country who are working to restore habitats, help biodiversity and reconnect people with the land.

“It’s about bringing people’s attention to what is beautiful and special in the hope they will want to protect it,” says poet Jane Clarke, whose writings backbone the book.

Jane, who has published three collections of poems, with a fourth due next year, grew up on a farm in Roscommon and loves the way Burrenbeo links farming and arts to promote an understanding of nature.

She’d previously read at the Burrenbeo Winterage Festival, which celebrates the area’s annual, nature-friendly tradition of moving cattle upland for winter grazing.

So when the group invited her to visit rural ambassadors in its Farming for Nature Scheme and capture that experience in verse, she was enthusiastic.

Those she visited here in Galway included Nia O’Malley, who farms on the Sliabh Aughties on the Galway-Clare border, and Pádraic Ó Flaithearta, from Inis Mór.

“They were full of passion,” Jane recalls. “When I came back, my head was full of images of what I had heard.”

Those images were her starting point.

“For Nia, it was about trying to protect the hen harriers in the Sliabh Aughties and it’s a sad poem because they are under such stress,” observes Jane of these ground-nesting birds of prey.

With Pádraic, she got two poems.

Walking his island land gave Jane an appreciation of the difficulties faced by farmers along the western seaboard, especially given the growing numbers of storms.

“I had the image of walls being knocked and how he has to build them again. It’s about the risk to farmers from climate change.”

The other poem captures how the farm has been handed ‘ó ghlúin go glúin’ and recalls those who worked such farms in the past.

Jane also visited Burrenbeo Farming Ambassadors in other counties and when she’d completed her poems, a total of 10, she liaised with Áine Bird of the charity about the next step.

They decided to produce a book that would also cover other Burrenbeo projects and would include photos and illustrations, capturing the landscapes and wildlife of the areas being written about.

Another Burrenbeo scheme is the Heritage Keepers, which supports community groups and primary schools to enhance the built, natural and cultural heritage of their areas.  The third one is The Hare’s Corner, named for the traditional farming practice of setting aside a section of a field for wildlife.

Áine and Jane invited journalist and nature activist Catherine Cleary to interview participants on those schemes. Artist Jane Carkill was enlisted to illustrate the book, which is published by Gill.

Her beautiful illustrations include the one on the front cover, an image of an alert hare nibbling on wild grasses

“They’re really important,” says Jane Clarke of the drawings from Jane Carkill who lives in the Burren and has a studio there. “They are stunning and they bring people to the book.”

Catherine’s stories, meanwhile, are of people from Balbriggan to Cape Clear to Ballinasloe and the work they are doing in their communities.

Pictured: Jane Clarke’s poetry about the Burrnebeo Farming Ambassadors is at the heart of The Hare’s Corner.