Permaculture Design Course (PDC)

Suzie Cahn runs a Garden and Permaculture Design business and is also a Director of Carraig Dulra teaching farm.

She says that she is one of the lucky people, in an increasingly urban world, who have been able to develop a deep connection with nature through a frequently unstructured natural childhood by the sea and in the Irish countryside. She was exposed to a Steiner based community living through a strong family connection with the Camphill movement. (Her Grandmother was a founding parent of Camphill in Ireland) Without knowing it at the time, throughout her teens she was got to experience to bio-dynamic agriculture, eco-building and intentional communities and working with the natural landscape. She is a mother, Permaculture Designer and Educators, and an Artist and a Art Therapist working with nature, evolving into an Eco Psychologist.

Suzie says her passion is reconnecting adults, young people, families and children to the learning, healing and creativity found in both nature and art.

She has grown produce for her family since she had her first tiny plot on which to do so and has brought an organic and wildlife community garden and teaching programs to schools and community gardens. She gives workshops and lectures on many topics and in many settings: Hospice Foundation, art therapy training programs and others. She set up a local group called Wicklow Community Gardening Group in 2006 which carried out its aim of developing community gardens throughout county Wicklow. She has served on several boards: CREATE, community rep Wicklow County Partnership, and currently GIY.

 She loved the family's six months WWOOFing on the road in Europe in her beloved 1971 VW camper in 2005 "Living inside other peoples lifestyles was amazing and so helpful in choosing what to do ourselves after what I called our 'mid-life crisis gap year.' After twenty years trying to live an ethical, eco life and to spread that ideal, we needed to recharge. It was becoming harder not to give in to hopelessness in the face of massive global environmental crisis' such as GMO, loss of bio diversity, global warming, and unimagionable levels of pollution from everything we do, even from our attempts at healing ourselves through medicine, not to mention running out of oil! "  In 2014 the family went off again, this time driving a van (to be donated to the Mongolia Charity GoHelp) across England, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan to Mongolia. She says "this time the trip was about reminding ourselves of our easy lives in Ireland even in "austerity" and contributing what we could to permaculture and education projects and a children's charity along the way." 

Suzie hopes that her work and that of Carraig Dúlra continues to inspire and support people and communities developing personal and local resilience under the permaculture umbrella ethics of earth care, people care and fair share.

Suzie's blogs can be found at:

www.suziecahn.org/blog

www.swallowclan.org/blog

http://meitheal.net/6plusWwoofVanClan/

Contact: info@dulra.org

Orlaith was one of the first participates in Carraig Dulra’s organic garden complete course in 2006. A keen allotment grower, Orlaith has a level 3 diploma in Horticulture from the RHS. She also has completed courses in Forest Gardening and most recently Geoff Lawtons Permaculture Design Course.

She is currently teaching organic gardening with the VEC in North Dublin and Tallaght and has a passion for cooking sumptuous meals with her home-grown produce. Orlaith brings an infectious enthusiasm for the Kitchen Garden lifestyle to the course.

I bring a unique skillset to my design and teaching work as I draw on:

• 10 + years of applied Permaculture design practice across Ireland, working on public and private land and community based projects, both solo and in collaboration with other organisations.
• 20 + years of practical experience that comes with co-managing her family farm in Roscommon,  including the development of multi-functional woodlands, permaculture-designed food production systems, various animals, my tiny home and lots more....   plus 2 years volunteering at an established Permaculture farm in France.
• Additional learnings from skill-specific trainings such as Regenerative Agriculture, Forest Gardening, Organic Market Gardening and Commercial Organic Seed Production to name but afew.

I offer a Permaculture design consultancy service, my Permaculture design experience so far encompasses household, garden (-staple crop food production, edible landscapes, community gardens), small-medium scale farming (human scale, animals, vegetable crops, woodlands) personal (using permaculture to guide personal focus, reflection, efficiency, business/livelihood), community network building, and appropriate scale shelter (low impact, low cost, high efficiency).

I'm currently expanding my work from a self employed sole trader towards a locally based community of practise which can scale up the quantity and breadth of Permaculture design work we can offer together while also providing live learning opportunities and potential pathways to regenerative livelihoods for others.

I have been teaching Permaculture in Ireland since 2010, in that time I have been working with community groups, land owners & individuals, facilitating workshops with those who want to learn how to use permaculture to improve the eco-efficiency of their landscapes, work & lifestyles.

I love the richness of collaboration and my courses bring together tutors, practitioners and various folk who together weave a diverse web of learning for participants as well as forging new connections and nurturing local resilience and relationships.

I use a creative teaching style, exploring Permaculture through interactive action learning, challenges, hands on practical projects, investigation, reflections & games.

I am also a tutor for people doing a Permaculture Diploma via the UK Permaculture Association.

Community is important to me, I'm involved in local community initiatives such as a seed saving collective, transition towns group and an ecological gardening group. I'm also involved in the national informal and grassroots Permaculture network in Ireland and I've been privileged to host the annual All Ireland Permaculture Gathering at our farm as well as being active in the core organising team.

I did my first PDC in the U.K with Designed Visions in 2009, while living and working on a permaculture farm in France. I later did an advanced design course with D.V.  too, and in 2010 I returned again to successfully completed a 'Training of Permaculture Teachers' course following which I did some apprentice teaching on Permaculture Design Courses in the UK.

I was awarded a Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design from the UK Permaculture association in summer 2015.

My website is www.earthcare.ie

Instagram and Facebook: earthcare_permaculture_ireland

Dave grew up on his Grandmother's dairy farm in Co. Cork, Ireland, which later became a suckler herd.

After a career in structural engineering, spanning Ireland, Australia and Canada, he spent a year working in International Disaster Relief, during which he realised that he wanted to address the issues at a causal rather than symptomatic level so he returned to Ireland to immerse himself back in agriculture. This time taking a regenerative approach to mitigate both carbon emissions and the impact of climate change as well as addressing general human and environmental health.

Dave has studied with/worked alongside Zach Wright, completed Hugh Lovell's advanced course, and the 5-day course with Jairo Restrepo at Ragman's Lane Farm (Biofertilisers and a lot more), has completed a year long course with Jim Cronin in Market Gardening, is just completing Elaine Ingham's 'Life in the Soil' course, and naturally has explored much other related material too.

Dave has taught all over Ireland and with Regen.AG in the UK.

He is currently a member of the Danú Farming Group which has been awarded funding through the European Innovation Partnership programme and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in Ireland to carry out a 5-year Biological Farming Transition Programme.

Margaret grew up on a small farm near Carraig Dulra. She is a local historian, and has uncovered details of the lives of the surrounding area from the 17th century up to the early 1970s, when the close-knit farming community that lived in the townland disappeared in less than a generation.

Steve Golemboski-Byrne owns Lackan Cottage Farm with his wife Claire, and has lived off grid for 12 years. With a diverse background that ranges from software engineering to construction, he's used his experience to advise on a wide range of off grid projects across Ireland.

His approach has always been to experiment and develop systems at Lackan in order to inform his teaching, and to offer others the chance to see working examples, especially of energy related projects.

Now he and Claire continue to offer learning opportunities at Lackan, and Steven's company Off Grid Kit specialises in consultancy and supply of off grid energy systems.

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