Reflecting the Past, Imagining the future

Artist Mollie Anna King devised and delivered a community engagement project titled Reflecting the Past, Imagining the Future in the Nire Valley and the village of Ballymacarbry. The project mapped the past, present and future of the area’s built and cultural heritage while exploring sustainable possibilities for its future development. The community was invited to imagine this future by rethinking the design and reuse of bothies and cluster villages, considering how these structures could be adapted within a modern and sustainable context for environmentally conscious tourism and contemporary living. Through the collection of stories, exploration of place names, and the development of proposals for the reuse of cluster villages and the remains of boolies, the project brought together local knowledge, heritage and sustainability. Activities included guided walks, workshops on hemp and sheep’s wool insulation, talks on traditional building methods, practical demonstrations, and discussions on renewable energy generation. Meitheal sessions invited community members to take part directly by trying out traditional building, insulating and powering methods, creating a hands-on shared exploration of how these spaces might be reimagined for the future.