Let us salute the Smith-Barry family for their vision and likewise the hundreds of local people who turned that vision into reality. We came on a visit to celebrate their and our Fota. Through our taxes and voluntary work years of neglect are being overcome and Fota restored is coming ever more into view.
Through the insightful gardening eye of our leader for the visit, Mary O’Brien, we witnessed an enhanced estate that lifted us all in body and mind. She showed us trees planted in Black ‘47 that now proclaim exuberance and vitality though planted in Famine time misery. In our own lifetimes it has taken courage and vision to nurse an impoverished “folly” to become for us a treasure of priceless value.
By judicious choice Mary chose perhaps twenty items – views, trees, plants, glasshouses, nursery etc that she used to illuminate the detail and enhanced our experience on a sunny day. We even got a peep at the head gardener’s house surrounded by orchards. We heard how the last resident of the “Big House”, realising that the task of keeping up the estate was beyond her, downsized to the head gardener’s house. Mary, our own head gardener, has the vision and knowledge to plant for 2047! It’s presently not clear if the head gardener’s house still goes with the job. If Mary wanted it she would have our vote. Should the “Big House” become available it would make a smashing time-share residence for RTAI members. All we taught and learned from the “Bord Dúlra” would make us appreciative and informed residents.
Seán Ó Callanáin
Photos from Martin Conroy
RTAI CORK BLOG - Suíomh na Múinteoirí Scortha Chorcaí 