By Brendan Smith

The roots were – literally and metaphorically – planted 25 years ago and the past quarter of a century has seen Terryland Forest Park evolve and blossom into the city’s green oasis. Recently some of those who sowed those seeds came back to plant some more.

Because a special native bulb planting – or Bulbathon – recently took place in Terryland Forest Park to create a Bluebell Woods in celebration of the first community native tree planting, the Plantathon, of 25 years ago.

And it was attended by many of the volunteers, accompanied by family members, that were in the park a quarter of a century ago.

It wasn’t the first celebration to mark the 25th anniversary; then-President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina were there in June to look around at a landscape totally transformed in the heart of Galway City.

“This is the Galway we want,” he enthused, as he recalled that where once there were barren fields, rubble and a litter-strewn river surrounded by barbed wire fencing, he now witnessed a wonderful mosaic of woods, meadows, wetlands, pasture, orchards and karst limestone outcrops populated by a diverse range of native fauna, flora and fungi.

Galway’s Green Lungs in an urban environment serving as an ‘ecological corridor’ for wildlife connecting the vast Corrib waterways on its western boundaries through the city to farmlands on its eastern side.

Initiated as a result of campaigning by residents’ associations that began in late 1995 (the year of the United Nations’ COP 1), more than 120 acres were zoned in 1996 by Galway Corporation (now Galway City Council) as a new woodland and riverine park.

Coordinated by a proactive, multi-sectoral steering committee, chaired by the corporation’s newly appointed Superintendent of Parks, Stephen Walsh, and fully supported by local authority management, councillors and Michael D himself as Ireland’s first Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Terryland Forest Park was the largest urban neighbourhood forest project in the history of the Irish State. It was also the first public park in Ireland designed with community participation.

When 3,000 people of all ages turned up to a field near the Quincentenary Bridge on March 12 2000, they left behind the beginnings of a native Irish forest that harked back to the great temperate rainforests which covered much of the country until the destructive colonial plantation period of the early 17th century.

That was the largest ever one-day community tree-planting at one site in Ireland and it began a remarkable transformation of our urban landscape and provided a sanctuary to many of the other species that live amongst us.

To complement Bulbathon 2025, an exhibition of paintings, which were undertaken in February 2000 by the children of Castlegar National School, Scoil San Phroinsias and St. Nicholas Parochial School on the theme of the new Terryland Forest Park just weeks before it opened, was hosted in the Ballinfoile Castlegar Neighbourhood Centre and later at the University of Galway as part of the Galway Science and Technology Festival.

Each painting was labelled with the name of the child artist and their school – and again, many of those original artists came back to view their work.

Others, now parents, brought their own children to see what they had done when they were about the same age as their kids are now.

It was another example of the work that has seen this oasis of nature develop and thrive in the city – and the success of these efforts has been shown by the fact that Terryland Forest Park was presented with the all-island ‘Pride of Place’ for cities award in 2022.

A year ago, it was awarded Galway city’s first Green Flag for Community involvement; received silver in the National RDS Community Woodland Award 2025; and last summer was honoured with the Galway Mayor’s Environmental and Sustainability Award 2025.

Proving that you reap what you sow – and now it’s happening all over again.

■ Brendan ‘Speedie’ Smith was one of the people who worked to establish the Terryland Forest Park 25 years ago  and he remains one of its greatest driving forces 25 years on.

Pictured: The Mulgannon family travelled from the UK and across Ireland to attend Bulbathon 2025. Their parents Margaret and Paddy (RIP) and family were at Plantathon 2000.