'Night of the Big Flood' by Inishowen Rivers' Trust

The Night of the Big Flood - Oíche na Tuile Móire 

The devastation caused in Inishowen by the 2017 floods is ongoing. Families in Burnfoot have still not been allowed to return to their Páirc an Ghrianán homes.

Inishowen Rivers' Trust wanted to capture the impact the floods had on the lives of people in the community and the recently released short film 'Night of the Big Flood' was the result.

The Inishowen Rivers' Trust is an environmental charity which aims to protect, restore and improve the rivers and natural waterbodies of Inishowen.

Speaking to Donegal Live about 'Night of the Big Flood', Claire Thompson, chairperson of the Inishowen Rivers' Trust, who was one of the people flooded that fateful night, explained the genesis of the film.

Claire said: “The Inishowen Rivers' Trust is involved in a lot of river restoration work and trying to improve water quality but, along with that, we were acutely aware of the flood damage in August 2017, which was a pretty major event for Inishowen.

“We wanted to capture that impact on people's lives and on the community. We felt it was really important not to forget about it.

“Also, in the light of climate chaos and biodiversity loss, we are very aware that flooding is going to become more frequent, with more storms and higher intensity rainfall and we wanted to showcase a situation which showed the communities they can do something about it. They can stand up as a community, like Clonmany did and say, 'We are going to do something about this. We are going to become more resilient and more adaptive to the situation'.

“The Clonmany community really took an on-the-ground, proactive approach to the problem. Inishowen Rivers' Trust set up a meeting to see if the community would be interested in getting some measures taken on the rivers to slow down the flow. We also wanted to provide an education that we cannot stop floods, flooding is always going to happen and is going to become more severe, but there are lots of things that can be done to help make the situation better, less impactful.”

Inishowen Rivers' Trust felt storytelling was a very important tool to connect people, to communicate, to make sense of an event and help people understand it and its impact.

Claire said: “Storytelling makes a lasting emotional connection between the storyteller, the situation and the community as a whole. We felt storytelling was an important tool and a way capturing the impact on people's lives. In the community.

“We engaged Neil McGrory, of Macruari Audio and Film Services and we tried to find a mix of people from the Clonmany area who had been impacted by the 2017 floods.

“We had representatives from the community centre, from the Waterfall community facility, somebody who had a landslide. We also had a farmer involved who had lost livestock and somebody from Inishowen Rivers' Trust as well, our project officer, Trish Murphy. All in all we had nine people telling their stories of what happened that night and the consequences.

“The film has had quite good reviews and people are interested in the measures we took.

“The interest in natural flood management is growing and Inishowen Rivers' Trust has become quite a lead on that in Ireland.

“There have been a lot of people nationally looking at the work we are doing and following it to see what happens next. It has been quite an interesting project for us over all.”