Ireland

*STOP PRESS* "We were delighted to hear recently that John Faulkner, BSBI County Recorder for Armagh, and a great contributor of records from far and wide, was awarded a British Empire Medal in the New Year's honours for services to 'conservation and grass breeding in Northern Ireland'. It is great to see John's hard work and expertise recognised, and we warmly congratulate him on the honour. He has been a driving force and leading light in the BSBI in Ireland for many years, and indeed across the whole society, not least during his time as BSBI President."

Maria Long, BSBI Irish Officer; Robert Northridge, Chair, Committee for Ireland. January 2019

Mayo Recording Event - a huge success!

The main Irish recording event of the year - a five-day botanical extravaganza in Mayo - ran from 8th to 12th August and was a huge success! Click on this hashtag: #BSBIMayo2018 to see some of the people who attended and the plants we found, or read posts on our News & Views blog here, here and here.

Last time the BSBI botanists hit Mayo en masse (in 2015), 42 of us managed to collect a whopping 10,824 plant records, including rarities such as Alpine saw-wort and Irish lady's-tresses! As soon as all this year's records have been collated, we'll post the results on this page. Will we match our 2015 results? Watch this space!

Irish BSBI field meetings programme

There's always a brilliant selection of field meetings held across Ireland each year! You'll find a mixture of training days, traditional BSBI outings, recording weekends, and a show-stopper big gathering: in 2019, this will be in Connemara in July. Find out more in the latest newsletter and on the BSBI Meetings page here. All are welcome and you don't need to be a BSBI member to come along!

Urban Plants Leaflet

Download a copy here of Phoebe O'Brien's lovely leaflet on urban plants in Galway. This was produced based on species seen on a walk led by Phoebe during Heritage Week in 2017, and was kindly funded by the Heritage Council.

Kerry BSBI Event 2017

The botanical recording event of the year has now ended but you can read all about the #KerryBSBIevent by clicking this link or this link. It ran from 1st-5th June on the stunning Dingle peninsula, Co. Kerry and was open to all, whether seasoned recorders, botanical beginners or improvers.  You didn't even need to be a BSBI member! The event was aimed at helping with recording for Atlas 2020 and we can report that more that 45 participants managed to collect more than 5,700 records over the course of the event. 

Right-click to download the flyer and booking form. Leader Rory Hodd and Caroline Mhic Daeid, fellow County Recorder for Kerry, were present throughout, as was BSBI Irish Officer Maria Long. So lots of help and support on offer! 

Cork Recording Event

Our main recording event of the year in 2016 was a four-day trip to Cork. Flyer here - just so you can see what you missed! 

The event was really great fun, with targeted recording in some of the most spectacular scenery in Ireland, rough crew teams tackling mountains, and evening activities too! We were based in the Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) village of Ballyvourney, at the beautiful Mills Inn.

Here we set up base camp, planned our routes, ate in the evenings, and discussed our finds and mapped our progress.Over the course of the four day event, 37 people took part, many of them local, and nearly 4,000 records were collected. A fantastic event and a fantastic success. Read more about it here, here and here. 

Irish BSBI Conference 2016

12 & 13 March at the National Botanic Gardens. We had a great conference, with a series of interactive workshops, and a number of great talks. Below are some of the talks for you to download and view.

All BSBI members are now able to access minutes of BSBI Council, Board of Trustees and all standing and country committees. Details of how to do this are on the members-only area and on the Governance page. Email us here if you've forgotten your password.

New Year Plant Hunt 2018-9

The map above shows all the locations across Ireland where you were out recording for the 2018-9 New Year Plant Hunt: congratulations and thanks to everyone who submitted a list, however large or small! See all the Results here and click on the red markers to view the lists in full.

The first flowers in the Hunt were found by Ger Scollard in Tralee, Co. Kerry. He submitted his list just after midnight on Day One! More here.

The New Year Plant Hunt Twitter feed is here and an analysis of all Results across Britain and Ireland will be published here on 29th January.

The Rough Crew

The Rough Crew record in places that are relatively inaccessible and a challenge to get to, such as mountain areas and offshore islands. In this way they bring in valuable records from places that have suffered from a lack of recording, and thereby support local County Recorders with tricky work.

So if you like a challenge, are reasonably fit, enjoy remote and wild places, and are an experienced botanist, enthusiastic beginner or somewhere in between, then the Rough Crew could be for you!

We have an informal email list - to be included email Rory Hodd: rlhodd@gmail.com. 

Charophyte ID Workshops

Two very successful Charophyte ID Workshops were held in Co. Westmeath in May, organised by BSBI and supported by NWPS. To find out more about charophytes (stoneworts), head over to the Charophyte page.

New Year Plant Hunt 2017-8

A few stats for you about the 2017-8 New Year Plant Hunt in Ireland:

The most floriferous place in Ireland at New Year was Irishtown/ Ringsend in Dublin, with 58 species in bloom.

  • 94 plant lists submitted by Irish recorders
  • 239 species recorded in bloom
  • 58 species on the longest list
  • The Top 5 Irish wild plants in bloom were (in order of frequency): Daisy, Dandelion, Annual Meadow-grass, Groundsel, Gorse.

The first flower spotted in the New Year Plant Hunt was a Groundsel photographed by Jessica Hamilton within the first hour of the Hunt!

Read about how Irish recorders got on here and here. Visit the New Year Plant Hunt page to see an analysis of the 2017-8 survey across Britain and Ireland. The map showing all results is here and do keep an eye on our New Year Plant Hunt Twitter feed here. Well done to each and every one of you who took part, no matter how long or short your list was!

Two articles were published about the 2018 New Year Plant Hunt in Ireland, courtesy of freelance journalist Lynne Kelleher: one in The Irish Mirror on 3rd February and one in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 4th February.

Irish Species Project (ISP)

Work on analysing all the data collected during the ISP is ongoing. We hope to have an article show-casing the findings in Irish Botanical News 2017, which is due in March. 

The ISP ran during 2014 and 2015. Work on analysing the data collected is being carried out now, and updates will be posted here. A total of 224 record cards were returned, with data being submitted for 31 of the 40 VCs across Ireland. There were 64 individually named recorders (of which 26 were County Recorders).

If you are interested in seeing the  guidance document or the recording card, click on the links, but please remember that this project is no longer running.

Click on the links below to see the species profiles (kindly hosted by NBDC):

Mayo Recording event, 27 Jul - 3 Aug 2015

Aimed at helping with recording for Atlas 2020, the Mayo Recording Week 2015 was a phenomenal success! 42 botanists took part, and collected a whopping 10,824 plant records from 132 monads (1x1 kmsqs) in 33 hectads (10x10 kmsqs) all across Co. Mayo in 8 days. It was great fun with lots of new contacts and friends made.

Visit the Ireland Facebook page

Irish Officer

Maria Long, BSBI Irish Officer, National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin 9, Ireland.

Email: maria.long@bsbi.org

Telephone: 00 353 87 2578763

Twitter: @murlong77

Facebook: @IrishSectionBSBI 

News

*NEW* The latest BSBI Irish Newsletter has just been published, with 12 pages of 2018's highlights and what to look forward to in 2019, including field meetings across Ireland! Scroll down and click on the link to download your free copy.

The Irish Autumn Meeting & AGM was a huge success! Talks will be uploaded soon to the webpage, so watch out for them.

Ireland's charophytes are making the news! Irish charophyte expert Cilian Roden contributed to this piece on Lough Carra - in The Irish Times.

The 2018 issue of Irish Botanical News has just been published - scroll down to the foot of this page to download your (free) copy!

Check out the new county webpage for Co. Antrim - they have a great programme of field meetings planned for this year!

Reports from County Recorders have now been collated - download the  Ireland 2017 VCR Annual Reports to find out what our amazing Recorders achieved last year across Ireland.

The 2018 Irish BSBI Conference was held on 24th March at the National Botanic Gardens, Dublin and was a huge success! Check out the #IrishBSBIConference hashtag on Twitter  read a report about the Conference by Jessica Hamilton and view or download the PPTs from the Irish Conferences page.

The latest issue of the Irish BSBI Newsletter is out! It has 16 pages of the latest botanical news from across Ireland, as well as plans for 2018. Scroll down this column to download your copy.

Following on from last year's Kerry BSBI event, there have been three very successful field meetings held in Kerry by the new #KerryBSBI group. Read about them here and here. You can find the Kerry BSBI group on Facebook and on Twitter.

County pages have been set up for both Donegal VCs, East & West and also for Kerry - take a look!

Available to download: Irish Botanical News No. 27, March 2017 - a bumper issue, with articles of broad interest.  

Presentations available to download from the Irish BSBI Conference (25th March 2017, National Botanic Gardens) include: keys for Veronica; Juncus ID;  flash talks. inc. Wildflowers of Armagh booklet, the Irish Red List; presentations on Atlas 2020 and the BSBI Distribution Database; a talk on D.A. Webb; and photos from the 'Rough Crew'.workshops. More info on the News & Views blog here and here.

New Red List for the vascular plants of Ireland can be downloaded here. The Red List is dedicated to BSBI's County Recorders.

Recent Finds

John Faulkner, BSBI President and County Recorder for Armagh, found Field Woundwort Stachys arvensis - just a year after the Rare Plant Register declared it locally extinct! 

The BSBI's botanical find of last year was made in Ireland, with a new site for Killarney Fern (gametophyte and sporophyte) discovered during the Cork Recording Event. 

One to watch out for: Water bent Polypogon viridis was found in Donegal by County Recorder Ralph Sheppard. 

Local groups and their contacts

  • ‘Rough Crew’, for adventurous botanists! – contact Rory Hodd (rlhodd@gmail.com)
  • Dublin/East Coast BSBI Local Group – contact Colm Clarke (dublinBSBI@gmail.com)
  • Clare BSBI Local Group – contact Stephen Ward (sdward@eircom.net)
  • BSBI Plant Atlas Recorders Cork – contact Edwina Cole (edwinacole@eircom.net), or search them out on Facebook.
  • Ulster BSBI Botany Group – contact Maria Long (maria.long@bsbi.org), or search on Facebook
  • Longford/Westmeath roving recorders – contact Maria Long (maria.long@bsbi.org)
  • Charophyte working group – contact Maria Long (maria.long@bsbi.org)
  • Kerry group – contact Jessica Hamilton (Jhbsbikerry@gmail.com)
  • Galway group – ciaran bruton (crnbruton66@gmail.com)

Recording Centres in Ireland

The National Biodiversity Data Centre (NBDC) is based in Waterford. From their website you can access maps and often details of records.

>> Go to the NBDC website

In Northern Ireland there is the Centre for Environmental Data and Recording (CEDAR), which holds more than a million vascular plant records on its databases. The Centre is happy to accept new records. Data cannot be obtained directly from their web site, but is accessible via an Information Request (email or post). Maps are displayed via the Flora of Northern Ireland.

Rare Plant Registers

Atlas 2020

The largest BSBI project running is Atlas 2020 - a full survey of all our vascular plant flora for the period 2000 to 2019. There is a dedicated Atlas page here, and here is a recent talk on 'Gearing up for Atlas 2020'.

Irish Members’ Conference 2014 presentations

Many of the speakers have made their talks available to download. Click on the links below to access them: