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Meanwhile, landscape artist Lelia Henry will lead adults in a drawing
Meanwhile, for those who prefer to be outdoors, the festival has mapped out a very special 10km walk in the Dublin
Director and founder of the Shaking Bog Festival Catherine Nunes hopes that all these events will reawaken and illuminate our often forgotten connection to the natural world. “I also hope that it will nurture our deepest impulse to belong and to care for the natural world through artistic immersion, creative connection, thought-provoking conversation,
Turn off your mind… Sam Lee
atest press release from The Shaking Bog Festival, issued on 
Tuesday, August 27th 2024…
The much-loved County Wicklow festival of art and nature, The Shaking Bog, is returning and will host a wide range of artistic and nature-based events in Enniskerry, Bray and the Glencree Valley on Saturday and Sunday, September 14th and 15th.
Roddy Doyle
Previous guests included Alice Oswald, Michael Longley, John Lewis-Stempel, Colm Mac Con Iomaire, Paul Durcan, Dara McAnulty, Paddy Glackin, Melissa Harrison, Roddy Doyle and Liz Berry.
The festival has had previous acclaimed iterations in June 2019 and September 2021 at its hub in the Glencree Valley, and has now branched out to Bray and Enniskerry too, to include a wider programme of music, poetry, public interviews, talks, film screenings, theatre and workshops. All the while cherishing its Glencree Valley roots, with family nature workshops and a walk across the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains, following the early footsteps of the great Irish playwright, Samuel Beckett.
Philip Hoare
One of the major highlights of the weekend is a talk by the renowned and idiosyncratic English writer, filmmaker and curator, Philip Hoare, and a subsequent conversation with Irish filmmaker and writer Alan Gilsenan about Hoare’s insatiable curiosity for and fascination with the sea, and whales, in particular.
Hoare is the renowned author of Leviathan or, the Whale, RisingTideFallingStar and Albert And the Whale, as well as the curator of the digital Big Reads of both Moby Dick and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. He is also Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Southhampton. This event takes place in St Patrick’s Church, Enniskerry on Sunday, September 15th at 6pm – tickets €20 here.
Paula Meehan by Paula T Nolan
In another much-awaited performance, music merges with literature at The Poet and the Harper on Saturday 14th, an event in which renowned poet Paula Meehan will read from her work, interspersed by music from Wicklow-based harpist Aisling Ennis, in St Patrick’s Church, Enniskerry. This event will begin at 6pm – tickets €20 here.
Other major festival highlights are taking place at Bray’s Mermaid Arts Centre, including the extraordinary and unique theatre piece Distillation from director Luke Casserly, which takes the audience on an olfactory journey through an Irish bog landscape. Produced in association with the Abbey Theatre and Solas Nua, this immersive performance is dedicated to the future of our broken landscapes – ‘in the hope that by listening to them, we might be able to better understand them’. Happening at The Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, Sunday, September 15th, 1pm, 5pm and 7.30pm. Tickets are €20, available here.
Also at the Mermaid Arts Centre is Notes from Sheepland, a new documentary directed by Cara Holmes, centred on artist Orla Barry and her experiences as a sheep farmer in County Wexford. The screening will be followed by a conversation between Orla and art curator Kate Strain. Happening at The Mermaid Arts Centree on Saturday 14th at 8pm, tickets €10 and €8 here.
Meanwhile, landscape artist Lelia Henry will lead adults in a drawing 
workshop, exploring the secret life of trees, at The Mermaid on Saturday 14th from 11.30am to 4pm – tickets €25 here.
This will be followed on Saturday evening by a very rare and intimate evening of folksongs and storytelling with Mercury Prize-nominated Sam Lee, in the evocative setting of St Patrick’s Church in Enniskerry. A chronicler and artistic spokesperson for the natural world through his four critically acclaimed albums, Lee is also the author of the hugely popular book, Singing With Nightingales. Tickets are €25, available here.
Lee will also host a workshop, Coming To Our Senses, on Sunday 15th, meeting at Knockree Hostel at 3pm, and heading off into the wilds with your very special guide. Tickets €10 here.
Caoimhin Ó Raghallaigh. Pic: Con Kelleher
One of Ireland s most talented musicians, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh will close the festival on a high note with a solo performance on his twelve-string fiddle, taking place at St Patrick’s Church, Enniskerry, on Sunday, September 15th at 8.30pm. Tickets are €25, available here.
Meanwhile, for those who prefer to be outdoors, the festival has mapped out a very special 10km walk in the Dublin 
and Wicklow Mountains, celebrating the childhood outings taken by Samuel Beckett with his father from their Foxrock home. Interspersed with readings from actress and writer, Caitríona Ní Mhurchú, the walk will bring people into the mood of this beautiful, painterly and sometimes desolate landscape. Leaving from the 185 bus terminus at Shop River in the
Glencree Valley at 9am on Sunday 15th – tickets €10 here.
Nature-lovers will have plenty of chances of outdoor opportunities with a moth magic workshop at Knockree Hostel on Saturday 14th at 8.15am, led by local enthusiast, Ciaran Finch (free; booking essential here); an exploration of mosses and liverworts with botanist Dr Joanne Denyer, also at Knockree Hostel on Saturday 14th, at 9am (free but booking essential here), whilst on Sunday 15th, there’s a morning nature trail in Knocksink Wood, led by zoologist Janic Schulte (free, booking essential here).
There will also be a family workshop on the interdependence of plants and insects in woodlands and bird/bat box building workshops, both at Knocksink Wood Education Centre, Saturday 14th at 11.30am, free but booking essential here.
Finally, Professor Jane Stout, Professor of Ecology at Trinity College Dublin, will speak with Irish Times journalist Sylvia Thompson on why and how we should care for the natural world. Taking place at Knocksink Wood Education Centre, Saturday 14th at 3pm, free but booking essential here.
Catherine Nunes
