Louth Urban Food Sanctuary project launches next week

Louth County Council is inviting all those interested in growing or starting to grow food to the launch of the Louth Urban Food Sanctuary project next Friday 13 October. The launch will take place from 10 am – 12 pm in Creative Spark, Dundalk. 

Back-yard growers and community gardeners are welcome to attend the launch to find out more about the project and sample locally produced food and cordials from a community table that will be set up at the event. Anybody who signs up to the project will be invited to ceremoniously plant a piece of garlic at the event that can be taken home after the event. 

The Louth Urban Food Sanctuary aims to empower the people of north Louth with the skills to develop local food resilience. Working with local creatives, the project will promote and demonstrate the importance of micro-geographic food security by embracing the changing diet of Louth through the arts. 

The project seeks to identify fruit and vegetable varieties not typically grown in Ireland that may prove suitable for the changing climate.

The Louth Urban Food Sanctuary celebrates the multi-cultural fabric of County Louth and encourages the international communities of the county to attend the launch and collaborate on the project by sharing ideas for produce to grow as part of the project. The project will run over the course of a full year. 

Louth County Council will receive €48,000 for the project from the government’s Creative Climate Action Fund II under the SPARK strand of the funding.

A total of twenty-four projects were selected nationally to pilot public engagement projects at local and community levels. Louth County Council is the only Local Authority to lead on one of these projects, highlighting that sustainability and climate action remain key priorities for the Council. 

The project is in collaboration with Creative Spark and brings together other partners from DKIT’s Department of Agriculture and Food, Department of Hospitality and Dept of Creative Arts and Media, along with local farmer Tony McGuinness, artist Pamela Whitaker of Groundswell, Artist Eimear McNally and Roisín Cotter, a local organic gardening tutor.

Through engagement with local communities and international students in DKIT, the produce to be grown will be identified, and through a series of socially engaging talks, lectures and workshops, participants will be educated on the benefits of producing products for consumption locally and given the guidance on how to do it and how to sustain it.