Mock archeological dig at Curracloe NS, March 2025
Photographs by David Begley
Harvest at Curracloe NS, June 2024
Filmed by Hanneke van Ryswyk
Edited by David Begley
Curracloe Garden
Artists David Begley and Hanneke van Ryswyk have established an organic school garden with the pupils of Curracloe National School. This ongoing project began in April 2023 when children were asked to bring cardboard to school to be laid on an area of the school's playing field. A beech hedge was planted around this rectangular space and inside this, two layers of cardboard were laid before adding well rotted manure to create no-dig beds. The garden is thriving and pupils enjoy sowing, growing, caring for, and harvesting food.
The garden is also a source for visual art lessons with David and Hanneke. Children enjoy charcoal drawing, botanical ink painting, colour painting, and clay modelling with local clay. In 2024 Curracloe NS hosted an exhibition of the children's botanical ink paintings and charcoal drawings for Culture Night.
The garden has prompted lessons on soil, germination, the importance of water, erosion, wildlife habitats, biodiversity, composting, history, science, language, geography, folklore, mythology, and creativity. The children have woven wattle beds, made oak gall and alder cone ink, have grown red cabbage for food and ink, they have drawn with reed pens, sown hundreds of seeds, and built a bean obelisk. They have smelled, handled, tasted and eaten their organic produce. They have also learned to identify weeds, vegetables, herbs and fruit plants. The children witness and experience biodiversity first hand.Last year’s addition to the garden is a wooden frame poly tunnel built by David, Hanneke, and landscape gardener Bob Ryan.
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Mock archeological dig at Curracloe NS, March 2025
Photograph by David Begley
GARDEN UPDATE 01.04.2025
A sunny March morning, we had a plan: at the border of the school garden 5th and 6th class would dig a new bed, remove the grass sods, pluck stones, and turn the soil into a fine, soft tilth, in time for the infants to arrive.
They went hard at it. Worked in teams of 5. Tore sods out with their bare hands, filled buckets with stones. They dug deep, complicit, as they would soon bury ‘artefacts’ for younger classes to unearth.
To our astonishment they dug the bed, some 100 cm wide by 300cm long, in an hour. They buried objects in the earth. Two pupils drew maps in case treasures might be lost.
The infants came, they clawed and squawked on their knees. Great squeals of triumph emitted from the dig. A five year old boy described his "Sedimentary" stone in detail.
Coins, fossils, flint (“Caveman’s fire-starter”), a “Dinosaur bone” (harbour seal jaw with teeth) were first to be found, soon a whale’s vertebra, an antler, a blackened wedge of 19th century shipwreck, a lump of sea coal, a replica great auk egg, and as the morning moved along, a nub of red ochre, smaller than a pea. It crumbled ruddy under my thumb. And so, the children heard of prehistoric cave paintings, we spoke of flint in awe; axe, arrow, blade, flame. A piece of crackled, glossy, ceramic appeared in a 1st class fist. Its edges rubbed smooth by soil, by time. A thing we did not bury. Proof, we archeologists agreed, humans have been here before.
As each class worked in teams, discovering and patiently unearthing. Children drew their finds. And to maintain the garden, others transplanted and labelled teasels into pots. Three girls made envelopes of poppy seeds, saved from last year. We will scatter them scarlet along the school fence, blooming in time for Sports day.
Meanwhile in the garden, two caring and gifted 6th class gardeners water daily. The beds are lush. Borage has doubled in a week. The bees will be thrilled - and the children too, as they love to nibble the blue star-shaped flowers. Honesty leaves have unfurled. Rhubarb sprawls and looks as though it may put the sage into shade. Lambs ears have awakened, keen, furry, warm in the sunlight.
In the poly tunnel the heat is rising, to 36C. Salad seedlings have burst from the earth. The week ahead looks fine, we’ll sow more seed, and keep growing, keep learning, keep smiling.
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David Begley, 01 April 2025
CREATE AND GROW
Culture night at Curracloe NS
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Friday 20 September 2024
6pm - 7.30pm
Join us at Curracloe National School for an exhibition of children’s art made by pupils of Curracloe NS inspired by their school garden.
Artists David Begley and Hanneke van Ryswyk (who created the garden with the children) will give a botanical ink making demonstration, a garden and poly tunnel tour, and give gardening tips for parents and children in order to encourage them to grow food at home, this event will also feature a screening of David Begley’s short film The keepers, which highlights the importance of art and gardening for children.
All welcome. Admission free. No booking needed.
Parking is available at the school.
Curracloe NS is wheelchair accessible and has disabled parking.
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Culture Night is brought to you by the Arts Council, in partnership with Wexford County Council.
Driftwood charcoal drawing by 5th class pupil, Curracloe NS, 2024
The garden at Curracloe NS, 2023
Alder cone and iron water in painting by 2nd class pupil, 2024
Vegetables growing in the garden in 2024 are Broad bean, Purple cabbage, Celery, Chard, Corn, Courgette, French beans, Garlic, Kale, Leek, Lettuce, Mizuna, Onions, Pak choi, Peas, Potatoes, Pumpkin, Spinach, Squash, Red Mustard, Runner beans and Tomatoes. Herbs include Borage, Chives, Clover, Lemon balm, Fennel, Mint, Sage, Plantain, and Yarrow. Our selection offruit and flowers include Blackcurrant, Rhubarb and Strawberries, Calendula, Cornflower, Cosmos, Lamb’s ear, Lavender, Nasturtium, Oxeye daisies, Sunflower, Teasel, and Lupins.
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David and Hanneke would like to thank the principal and school staff for their support and enthusiasm on this project. Many thanks also to Joyce and Tommie Wouters, Eric Ryan, Michael Cullen, Nora Forde and Bob Ryan of Sound Gardens.
Borage, dead nettle, kale, and a rogue spud Curracloe NS, April 2025
Photograph by David Begley
MICRO JUNGLE OF JOY
Miracles occur each week at Curracloe NS school garden. The garden has its own mind, its own pulse; a will to flourish. Lambs ears are pricked to the sky, ready to leap in every direction. At the side of the poly tunnel a row of poppy babies have burst from the earth in bright jade. Our first potato leaves have broken ground. Strawberry and borage flowers bloom white and cobalt. Rhubarb is ready for picking.
A corner of one bed is so packed with leaves it is a micro-jungle of joy: dead nettle, borage, kale and lambs ear, a rogue potato from last year, all living and thriving together. The children have packed the poly tunnel tables with seeded pots; tiny shoots appear each day.
Another wonder this week: a boy brought violas to school. At the base of the bean obelisk I asked him to clear some weeds, make room. Quietly, carefully, while other children milled about, he made the soil ready, dug three holes, and tucked in his flowers. Around these to protect them from being crushed, he wove a delicate fence of sticks and papery vines. From a milk bottle with a punctured cap he watered them with harvested rain.
The potential of it all astounds me.
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David Begley, 05 April 2025