Nobel prize winning economist Eleanor Ostrom wrote: “There is no reason to believe that bureaucrats and politicians, no matter how well meaning, are better at solving problems than the people on the spot, who have the strongest incentive to get the solution right.” This quote reverberated in my head as Maeve showed me around Mud Island community garden — a patch of land on the North Strand originally zoned for social housing but left derelict for years, essentially an informal dumping ground. Maeve is one of the founders of the garden, the current joint secretary, a former social worker in the HIV clinic in St. James’s Hospital and a former lecturer in Trinity. Maeve first heard about community gardens in London in the 1970s when her partner became involved with Meanwhile Gardens, a community garden that still exists today.
From the first meeting in 2009, it took the volunteers two years to gather all of the necessary paperwork (including public liability insurance and a signed petition from every single resident who had a window facing into the area) in order to obtain a temporary eleven month period. The volunteer-run committee has had to resubmit this application every year since the garden opened. They are also supposed to vacate the area for one month per year, presumably so they can’t accrue consecutive years and claim squatters rights.
I still can’t quite believe that it is and has always been run completely by volunteers. There is a greenhouse with a peach tree, a pizza oven with a handmade mosaic on it, a stage for performances, a sophisticated composting area, a renovated cottage used as a repair cafe (a monthly event where skills are shared and objects such as bikes and crockery are fixed), a classroom, a tea-room, a knitting circle, and a scout den. Wherever possible the volunteers try to source materials that are going to waste. For example, the first donation of compost they received was from the Abbey Theatre, who had just finished putting on a play by Brian Friel.
Nathalie is the current chair of the executive committee for the garden and a full time lecturer in Technological University Dublin. The garden is not like the community: it is the community. As Nathalie put it: ”You plant seeds and something will happen.” And she was right. As well as simply being a free place in the north inner city where people can enjoy nature and get free fruit and vegetables, the members of the community have begun their own initiatives.
As well as growing rosemary, brussel sprouts, and potatoes, they also grow the Afghan plant gandana, as well as Lebanese rocket and a pomegranate tree, gifted to the garden by a group who celebrate Eid in the garden every year. One of the members, Makaryl, is from Poland and takes part in a monthly fermentation club. A woman shares her skill of kintsugi (pottery repair) once a month at the repair cafe. The owner of the pizza restaurant across the street, Da Mimmo’s, made time to come over and show the kids how to make a proper pizza. This was part of the garden’s Seed to Pizza project where kids learned how to grow all of the ingredients needed to make pizza.
There’s a lot of reasons to feel disempowered at the moment. On my commute to college from my home, I pass three giant office buildings being constructed. It makes me feel angry and helpless to see more and more space given to companies rather than to people. But feeling helpless doesn’t fix anything. What struck me about Maeve and Nathalie was the no-nonsense, matter-of-fact, empowering way they spoke about their members. They emphasised their policy of allowing any member to start their own initiatives.
Nathalie described the St. Brigid’s cross making event they had a few weeks back: “I overheard someone say, ‘Who is the person doing the workshop?’ I said nothing because there was nobody doing the workshop. But in each group, at any one time there was one person. [Who said] ‘I can show you’ and then someone learned, and then showed someone [else].”
As well as learning English through gardening, it is also possible to learn Arabic and Irish for free in Mud Island. Many of the volunteers and members are asylum seekers from the nearby direct provision centre who are not legally allowed to work for the six months of being in Ireland. As with most public services, you don’t notice you have access to their benefits until they are taken away. As Trinity students, we have access to many green spaces on campus where we can go to feel peaceful and socialise. Many communities on the north side of Dublin have no such basic amenity. Nathalie explains that many local schools come to the garden at least once a week: “Children, they come around. They live in the city center. They only see gardens or roads. They don’t see wildness. Here they see wildness. And they might get involved in the life of bugs. This looks dead to you, but in fact, or to kids, but in fact it’s full, it’s a home and a kitchen for birds and for animals.”
Hearing her say this made me realise that I have no idea where most of the food I eat comes from. After centuries of growing our own food, Irish people now consider it a luxury to be able to see exactly where their food is grown. But this doesn’t have to be the case. Nathalie and Maeve stressed the ease and accessibility of urban gardening. “You can grow salad leaves on a windowsill,” Maeve told me. To grow potatoes, all you have to do is chuck four spuds into a shopping bag filled with soil on St. Patrick’s Day and leave it outside, by mid-summer you’ll have spuds!
When talking about learning about the cycles of nature and how to grow things, Nathalie said “ it’s so important because you’re not going to fight for something that you don’t know.” She was talking about the environment at large but I couldn’t help but think of it in terms of the garden as well. With news cycle after news cycle about the continuing decline of third spaces, the infantilization of adults, the rising cost of vegetables, here is a space right in the heart of the city that is accessible to everyone, used daily and relies on the self-organising of volunteers. Perhaps we only think that projects like this won’t work because we haven’t been exposed to them when they do work. I think of the kids and refugees who use this garden, how their perception of this city must be completely different to my own. To them, maybe Dublin is a city where people give up their time and energy in order to spend time with their community, they use their skills to create spaces everyone can use, they give freely what they have and are eager to learn new skills, they see land that is unused and turn it into something that benefits everyone. That is the city I want to live in. Mud Island should be the blueprint for every neighbourhood in Dublin. Rather than endless empty office buildings, more space should be allocated to the community.
If you want to check out Mud Island for yourself, this weekend is the perfect time because there will be a céilí on Sunday the 16th of March. The last Sunday of every month is also a good day to pop along because that is when the Repair Cafe is open and you have the opportunity to get some clothes, bike and crockery repairs done, free of charge. Becoming a member is easy and can be done through their website mudisland.ie, it only costs 10 euros (5 euro for the unemployed and free for asylum seekers) and gives you access to the monthly newsletter which is packed with useful gardening tips as well as information about upcoming events. But even if you don’t become a member, everyone is welcome to visit the garden, help out with chores written on a blackboard and help themselves to some delicious organic fruit and vegetables.
