Chapter 1: What inspired the creation of 'Forest Songs'?
Over the past few months, three professional artists have been developing new work inspired by the public forests of the Dublin Mountains. Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Council sent the artists to the woods in Ticknock, Tibbradon, Barnaslingan, Carrickgolligan and Kilmashogue.
And along the way, they spoke with the people who know these places best – walkers, cyclists and families – about what these forests mean to them. The result is Forest Songs, a collection of three love songs to the forests written in collaboration with composer Tom Lane. Della Kilroy met the creators from Cracking Light Productions to find out more.
So we're walking through the woods on the edge of Ticknock Forest. The ground is a beautiful web of roots that are kind of brought up to the surface, I guess, by a lot of people walking across them. If you look into the distance, the woods can feel very deep and dark, but we're right on the edge where life is kind of springing up.
so this place is really special because if you turn and look back what you can see is a huge vista of the city spread out in front of you and you're looking through the tree trunks and out into the open sky and beyond to the to the ocean and what you can hear are all of the birds that are calling this place home i suppose and places like this are really integral
to the biodiversity that we have, particularly close to urban centres. So it's a really important place for people to come and enjoy the calmness of spending time in nature. I guess it's building your senses. I think all of these things are really lost if you don't have the ability to go out and explore.
I'm with Maeve Stone and Alex Gill, creators of three songs dedicated to the forests in Dublin's mountains. The lyrics and melody of each song are built from interviews asking people what draws them to these landscapes.
we were making this project it was really clear that it's a vital lifeline for a lot of people it's a place that draws people on a daily basis who are in the habit of coming here either with dogs or just as part of their own exercise but then for for a lot of people as well it's somewhere that calls to them when they need solace and calmness and and especially because we live so much of our lives on screens and online and there's a lot of disconnect and loneliness and that
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Chapter 2: How do local communities connect with Dublin's forests?
And coming out to a place like this really plugs you back into your own place in the web of nature because we are animals, you know? And I think when you can stop and breathe and listen and really spend time or just walk through, even that process of walking can be what you need to kind of slow your heart rate down and reconnect.
I would have had young people from Ballyogan and Finglas and Ballymun and all these kind of places that would never normally get the opportunity. Particularly for young people from those kind of disadvantaged areas, I think it broadens their horizons. It makes them see nature in a different way as well. To switch that perspective into, wow, I can go up here and have this amazing experience.
These are the kind of kids that would be pulling wheelies down the middle of the main street in Finglas on their bikes. But to change that into a more constructive way of engaging with biking and coming up and engaging with nature, I think it gives them an appreciation for nature as well.
There was such a diversity in the people I spoke to and in the reasons they come here, whether it's to go mountain biking. And so Song of the People is really a composite of some of those beautiful moments and pictures that people were able to share at the time. Headspace. Beauty. Nature. Fresh air. Replenishing. Every reason to come to the woods.
Brilliant that they're bringing in all the native trees and replanting native trees. It's lovely to see that. Alex, you recorded and documented some of the things that you can see and hear in this forest. What did you find?
Well, I guess I essentially made music videos for Amazing Music. I wanted to kind of capture the forest from the macro to the micro. And I suppose what I found was a lot of bugs, mushrooms, pine cones, stuff that you probably would walk past and not necessarily look at. But if you get down your hands and knees and you really examine closely, you'll see all sorts of life.
You'll see that this whole living world underneath our feet, or even literally just below the surface as well, I think it was important to show that as well. So yeah, we're about to pass through a sectioned off part of the woods here that are a mix of native tree species. And you've got to go through these gates right here there, which are being put up to protect it from deer, I think, isn't it?
So it feels completely different to where we just were. It's a lot brighter, there's less taller trees, but these are native plants.
We get all walks of life out here The third track is called We Get All Walks of Life. I guess it's a celebration of diversity and the reasons people choose to be here. And the invitation in the song really is to think about whose home you're walking through, you know. There's so many millions of living creatures and species and plants.
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