11 Sep Ecovillage Site: Sale Agreed!

So it’s been 9 months since last blog update… a lot has happened in that time…

We are delighted to announce we are SALE AGREED on the Ecovillage site of our dreams <3 Woo Hoo!

It’s been such a slog these last five years working on this project. It’s the toughest challenge I have ever taken on. We have had a couple of false dawns on this but it seems at long last, the harvest of all our labour is coming to fruition.

The site is an incredible 65 acres of indigenous woodland and shrub, directly on the shore of the beautiful Lough Key, in North Roscommon, with 8 cottages and a larger farm-house (to serve as our community hub). There are also three other old cottages and a barn on the site whose footprint should enable further low-impact development (subject to planning).

We have decided to name this Ecovillage project: Dún Dúlra (Nature Fortress) and our project mission statement is “Creating a sanctuary to live lightly with nature and prosper together.” Live Lightly and Prosper! 🖖😀

We have got to this stage following a workshop using the incredible Dragon Dreaming project management system www.dragondreaming.org . I am lucky to have got to learn directly from the designer John Croft during a series of workshops over the last 3 GEN Europe Conferences. 90% of projects fail within the first 3 years.’Dragon Dreaming’ to date has almost 11,000 international projects all of which have had 100% success. We went from having the lowest ever funds pledged with myself on the edge of burn-out to being fully funded within 24 hours of our Dragon Dreaming workshop and being sale agreed within the week. I am working to become a qualified facilitator of this approach <3

We have also got to this stage thanks to the amazing CSR support of a local film company bigO who saw the potential in what we are doing and immediately offered to back us. bigO plan to use one of the cottages as a regional office, which will also help bring employment to the local area.

Further they have already began to film a documentary of the whole process. We needed heroic support and we have found it at last. “Where better to run a tourism digital agency than from in the centre of Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands… we think by coming in early, and being an early investor, we will have a significant advantage and we would imagine that lots of other people would be really keen to invest after us.” (Vanessa Lawrenson, www.bigO.ie)

As well as bigO, we have other heroes who are helping us co-purchase this site, most of whom have been long term backers. We are also delighted to be able to offer an invitation for TWO OTHER FOUNDING INVESTOR SLOTS. As we currently have the capital to buy the site, but will require further funding support for Phase One Development i.e. renovating the pre-existing infrastructure.

We are having an ‘Open Day’ for prospective new investors on Saturday 28^th September (as part of the European Week for Sustainable Communities). Already we have potential new ethical investors coming over for this day from Italy and Germany to view the site and meet with our core team, as well as investment interest more locally. Exciting stuff!

If you know anyone who may be passionate about this pioneering opportunity to be involved personally or professionally in the founding of this inspirational ecovillage, then please do share this blog post with them and or ask them to get in touch via EnrichedEarth@gmail.com

In other news we are also honoured to be 1 of 12 founding projects of GEN-WISE, a new bioregional alliance of the Global Ecovillage Network operating across Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England. Sitting beside leaders in the field such as Cloughjordan Ecovillage (Tipperary), Findhorn Ecovillage (Scotland) and Lammas Ecovillage (Wales). We had our first face-to-face meeting at the inspirational GEN Europe Conference in Tuscany during July.

We need Permaculture, Ecovillage and Transition Town solutions right across Ireland and this is happening organically at an ever increasing pace, with Roscommon and Longford for example both becoming Transition Towns. We encourage all Community Eco Projects in Ireland to avail of a current free membership offer of GEN-WISE as we work to share best practice and create a network of mutual support. www.GEN-WISE.org sign up via our new website currently being built.

In this time of Climate and Biodiversity Emergency (with Ireland being the second country in the world to declare this) and with our supporters Roscommon County Council also declaring a Climate and Biodiversity Emergency. Our Ecovillage project is very timely, as we have the solutions, based on international best practice through our partners GEN. We can help lead the way locally, nationally and internationally towards a regenerative culture that rises to meet face-on the challenges of our time.

We encourage all our supporters to begin to set up Ecovillage Projects in their local area, be it urban or rural, and our team at Enriched Earth and GEN can help via consultation and training as required at both individual, community, council and national levels.

We believe in Radical Hope. That the ecological crisis of our time is also an opportunity for humanity to evolve into a better way of living with each other and with respect for the natural world. In this, building regenerative communities is key.

Be part of the solution…

Onwards! <3

John-Paul Patton

Enriched Earth Founder

An Taisce Cimate Ambassador

GEN Trainer and Ambassador

Environmental Education Consultant