I was invited to host the HEARTH Gathering with Rural Community Network, which is an annual coming together of around 100 heritage practitioners from across Northern Ireland organised by Emma McAleer.
Through my practice/ work at Starling Start, I spend much of my time exploring how our complex heritage stories and memories shape the future of place, so it felt particularly special to hold space for a day dedicated to ‘joy’.
Across the day we gained insight into rural heritage in action, from education and collections, to craft skills, knowledge exchange and storytelling.
Whilst preparing for the gathering, I found myself drawn back to my granda’s diary from 1979. It’s a quiet, concise, and joyful record of rural Ballynicholl, written in one short sentence per day.
Through those brief entries, we follow a year in the garden: sowing, planting, harvesting. Tomatoes, leeks, sprouts, beans.
We hear about the birds as they arrive - a cuckoo, “a new family of wrens”, starlings. On the back cover, a handwritten list of every sale he made (his annual accounts).
We track the weather: “Raining / Very cold / Worser / Badder.”
We glimpse his social life: “New spuds at midnight”, regattas on Strangford Lough, garden parties, fair days that remain part of community tradition almost 50 years later.
Davy’s diary and The Gathering show that consistent acts of sharing and showing up are what sustain rural places over time, keeping our (what could very easily be forgotten) places, people and stories relevant and alive.
HEARTH Gathering was organised by
@emma_bramblescreatureshow at Rural Community Network and was funded by
@heritagefunduk and was based in
@thecourthousebushmills
Pics by
@joelavertyphotography and diary by Davy Mageean
