Yesterday Hannah and I met with the Founders of the Carraig Dulra Permaculture Research and Demonstration and Education Center, Suzie & Mike Cahan. Their site is in the in the Wicklow Mountains in South East of Ireland, close to where the famous Mel Gibson movie “Braveheart” was filmed…
Mike and Suzie started the site 8 years ago and have achieved an impressive amount in that time, But acknowledge the help they had received from their dedicated local Volunteers and Woofers. Their site buzzes with positive energy from their Children and 2 lovely dogs.
Suzie gave us a tour of Their beautiful site and explained the work they had done in forming the various zones. They have a fantastic natural build hall with hobbit style living roof, giant size glass house, (Recycled of course) plenty of rich soil in annual beds, huge Chicken house and the impressive beginnings of a diverse food Forrest.
Suzie is an experienced Teacher, Organizer & Leader of Permaculture courses, and runs a Permaculture Design Certificate Course every May at the Carraig Dulra site. We went their after asking if we could “pick her brains” about ideas for the Jungle Oasis Permaculture Project and our courses.
Based on what they tried and found had worked for their courses in the past. Both her and Mike gave us in-valuable advice about our project and ideas. She told us many stories of the nature of students and how the cycles of courses tend to run. She revealed to us how she designs them (using permaculture principles of course) to be a valuable experience for all involved.
The visit to the site has left us with a buzz of energy, full of ideas and feeling wiser on the subject, like we had spend time with true masters of their craft. We are tired from seeing all the work and thinking about all that needs to happen on our site, but feeling really excited to be running the project and helping to facilitate the PDC coming up in November.
We wish Suzie, Mike and all the Team all the best for the future and hope when they travel next, it might be to us as The International Permaculture Convergence in 2017 is only 700 kms from our site, and sure that’s nothing to them…
Jungle Oasis Permaculture Project 