RISING brings together Trinity College Dublin and Brokentalkers Theatre Company who are providing opportunities for residents living around Dublin’s Docklands to engage with the topic of climate action through creative workshops and meetings with climate scientists. Participants engage in creative discussions and writing, focused on the behaviour changes required to mitigate climate change. Together they will take action on one or more climate-related issues of most importance to them, recording their experiences through writing and video. View our Events and Gallery sections below to hear what they are doing and how they are getting on.
Listen
Key to facilitating our discussions with residents is a 20-minute audio recording imagining a future for Dublin’s Docklands and beyond where no action is taken on climate change. During Dublin Theatre Festival 2021, crowds gathered along Dublin’s city quays, and submerged themselves into the world of RISING. Narrated by local Pearse Street resident, Kym Delaney, and written by Brokentalkers, the piece was inspired by interviews with Trinity’s academics on the subject of climate change. You can listen to the full 20-minute audio recording here.
In 2021 Dublin Theatre Festival, supported by Dublin City Council, commissioned Brokentalkers in collaboration with Algorithm to create a new public artwork, RISING. Trinity College Dublin supported this installation through their artist-in-residence programme based at Trinity East and through their application to Creative Ireland for funding to extend the programme and deepen engagements with local residents around the topic of climate change. RISING is funded by Creative Ireland, in collaboration with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications.
Projects
Corporations and Climate Change - Taking Action from the Inside
Manuel Salazar, RISING participant and climate activist outlines his main recommendations for how individuals can approach their employers about taking climate action.
Conversations with local Docklanders
Reflections on the environment and climate change by 3 local Dublin Docklands residents - their experiences locally and internationally, as well as with the RISING project.
Developing an Edible Garden — Walking tour of Ringsend
RISING participants on a walking tour of the green areas of Ringsend
Edible Garden — starting off
A number of participants in RISING are embarking on establishing a free edible garden in Ringsend.
Edible Garden — the launch
We found our location and got planting!
EVENTS
We have a number of workshops coming up. Each Monday evening we meet to chat about the climate-related changes people are trying to make locally and how they are getting on. It’s not too late to get involved. Come along and experience our creative endeavours. Some workshops will feature guest speakers.
Join us for RISING, a presentation on climate action by residents from Pearse Street, Ringsend and close to the Docklands.
You can watch back the presentation from the Lir here:
Dates: Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th April
Time: 7pm – 8pm
Venue: The Lir Academy (Studio 2)
The RISING project has brought together Docklands residents, Brokentalkers theatre company and Trinity College and over the last few months, we have explored what matters to people in the area regarding climate change. We have started an Edible Garden in Ringsend, begun a campaign to improve litter collection and recycling facilities and considered how to get local employers to act in a more sustainable way. We had presentations from academics and staff in Trinity. We drank coffee, ate lots of biscuits, wrote down our thoughts and even did some singing!
Come along to our presentation, meet your neighbours who have been working on this project, have a laugh and be inspired to get more involved in local climate change action.
David Hackett is Trinity College’s Environmental Services Coordinator and a qualified horticulturalist. He will provide a talk about maintaining herbs, shrubs, annuals and wildflowers. There will be a practical part to this session where we will learn about seed sowing using everyday household containers such as yoghurt and mushroom pots.
You can read his presentation here
Grow your way to greatness – David Hackett
Trevor Woods, Scientist and Artist will present details on the current plastic pollution problems in our oceans and rivers, possible solutions to this issue and how artists can communicate this subject through up-cycled art installations to those not familiar with its long-term effects.
We will also continue work on our plans to develop an edible garden in Ringsend and campaigning for better litter collection and recycling.
Email [email protected] to find out more, all welcome
Tonight we will be joined by Dr Zoe Roseby whose area of work in Trinity is environmental reconstructions. Her current project focuses on past sea level rise. She will give a 30 minute talk on future sea level projections and impacts to Dublin. She is leading another Creative Ireland project on climate change called Linte na Farraige, @lintenafarraige
We will also continue work on our plans to develop an edible garden in Ringsend and campaigning for better litter collection and recycling.
Email [email protected] to find out more, all welcome
This evening, we will delve more into our 3 projects – developing an edible garden, tackling light pollution and campaigning for improved litter and recycling collections. Come along 6.30pm, Unit18 on Macken Street; email [email protected] to find out more
Remember Trinity’s Green Week starts today – you can check out the events at this calendar, Calendar – Provost & President – Trinity College Dublin (tcd.ie)
On Monday 14th, we will meet to chat about the chosen group activities. Some people are focusing on more “greening” in the area, others are planning on lobbying councillors for improved services. Our guest speaker is Prof Quentin Crowley, Director of the Trinity Centre for the Environment. He will chat about System Thinking and Climate Action. To register just email us at [email protected]
This was the first week of 2022 where we were back to an in-person workshop. It was great to see everybody in Unit18 (Trinity in the Community) to focus on the actions we will take. We are working on a number of initiatives – more “greening” of the area and lobbying authorities for improved recycling and cleaning.
In this online workshop, we further discussed changes that participants might make in their lives to impact climate change. We were joined by Trinity College’s Sustainability Officer, Michele Hallahan, who talked about some of Trinity’s Green projects including a successful Trash2Treasure event.
Our first workshop in 2022 was on Zoom due to Covid restrictions. However we were still able to get creative! We did a writing exercise where participants chose one of the potential changes suggested in previous workshops that they could make to positively impact climate change. They wrote a diary entry, imagining that they had been doing this new activity for 6 months, telling us about the things that have gone well, have gone wrong or have been harder than expected. We were also joined by guest speaker Joe Donnelly from the Fair Play cafe, and co-founder of Ringsend and Irishtown Sustainable Energy Community.
Resources
Learn more about what we can do, either individually or as communities, to reduce our carbon emissions. How will rising sea levels impact Dublin? We also highlight work by other local climate action groups.
RISING: Final Report Full Rising Audio Track Trinity College Green Week Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change What impact will climate change have on Ireland? Top 5 things I can do about climate change Calculate my carbon footprint Food and Climate ChangeGET IN TOUCH
Corporations and Climate Change - Taking Action from the Inside
Manuel outlines 6 actions that employees can take to encourage their employers in making positive steps to protect against climate change.
The main points are:
- Awareness
- How can projects be delivered with minimal carbon footprint?
- Climate assessments
- Carry out climate risk assessments for every project and monitor regularly
- The Fossil Fuel Pledge
- Investing in green initiatives
- Employers’ clients
- Move away from clients’ high emission contracts
- Internal benefits
- How are pensions, insurance and healthcare benefits threatening the environment?
- Wake up and Walk out
- Walk out for the climate campaign.
You can read the full document with more detail here.
Conversations with local Docklanders
Una Whitney, a City Quay resident, spent years working in Zimbabwe and reflects on her time there, how climate change is impacting the country and what she is now doing locally to tackle litter around the Docklands. She also speaks about her experiences of the RISING project.
Joe Donnelly has lived in Ringsend for 40 years and now runs the Fairplay cafe – more than just a cafe, with the project incorporating a garden, chid-care, cafe and helping projects in the developing world.
Betty Ashe has lived in Dublin’s Docklands for over 50 years and worked as a community activist – with the establishment of St Andrew’s Resource Centre in 1989. She has been an advocate for education in the area for decades, working with a range of agencies and programmes including the Trinity Access Programme. Betty was very proud of Kym Delaney, a local neighbour, who narrated RISING for the Dublin Theatre Festival.
Developing an Edible Garden — Walking tour of Ringsend
Prior to developing our edible garden, participants from the RISING project took part in a guided walking tour of Ringsend. Led by Karen Saunders and Mary O’Neill from Ringsend and Irishtown Tidy Towns group, we surveyed what sites might be possible to start our little garden.
Edible Garden — starting off
Over the last few months, we have explored what matters to people in Dublin’s Docklands area regarding climate change. Some of the RISING participants chose to start an Edible Garden in Ringsend – a public place where people living nearby could come and help themselves to whatever was growing. We are planning on growing parsley, chives, rosemary, wild garlic, mint and who knows what else? While there is an allotment in Ringsend, all the spaces are taken up and there is no public access. Our Edible Garden is open to all! Thanks to our neighbours in the allotment for getting us started and RISING participant Tania Banotti for reaching out to them as you can see from this video.
Edible Garden — the launch
Thanks to inspiration from RISING participant Karen Saunders and local resident Mary O’Neill (and member of Ringsend & Irishtown Tidy Towns), we chose St Patrick’s Villas for the location of our edible garden. We have started small, planting parsley, mint and a few other herbs to which neighbours can help themselves. There was a lot of interest from passers-by. Already other RISING participants have been inspired to plant their own herbs at home.
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