Course Overview:

An important aspect of this course is enhancing your connections to yourself, to others and to nature. You will gain insights into many areas of life, from households to urban gardens, small holdings, woodlands, and how cities can be transformed into living landscapes.  The main focus is to get inspiration for your own lives whether you have a garden or own a house or not.

This course is beneficial for everyone who is hoping to live more sustainably, whether or not they have access to a gardening space or own a house.  The course is very participatory. Lecturing is kept to a minimum. There is an element of personal development in this course. However, participants can choose to what degree they engage in this element, whether to volunteer for experiential exercises or to just watch them happen. The virtual tours of The Hollies Centre for Sustainability will clearly illustrate many aspects of the course.

Course Practicalities:

Tuesday evenings 7:00-10:00pm for eight weeks, 6th of February to 26th March 2024. 

Venue: Western gateway Building, Room  G18, UCC

Closing date for applications: Monday 29th of January 2024

Course Content:

Each session will follow an experiential and interactive format where aspects of sustainable living are introduced and applications to participants’ lives are explored.

1. Sustainability – taking care of the seventh generation after us.
2. How Eco-Systems work. What is unsustainable about current lifestyles? Permaculture Principles and how they can help to make positive. Understanding Energy – Resources – Inputs – Outputs – Functions. On the level of a garden, of your household and of your town/community.   
3. Everything gardens. Everywhere. Garden design for food and health.
4. Ecology of a house. Gardening on window sills, back yards, small urban spaces. Food and medicine for free – Foraging in cities/ in the country. How a garden system can work with natural cycles. How thinking in garden systems can inform other areas of life. Retro-fitting a house for energy efficiency and health. Renewable energy. Personal energy use. How your personal choices influence your own life and society.
5. Natural Building materials and techniques. Cob, Straw, Wood, Stone, Lime.
6. Sustainable Woodland Management - Forest Gardens – Agro-Forestry. How ‘Green Building’ is different from ‘Natural Building’. Be your own architect – approaches to design that can benefit everyone.
7. Community-based approaches to sustainable living.
8. Re-designing your life, your business, your family using permaculture. - The Transition Movement - Community Gardens and Allotments - Community Supported Agriculture. What is happening in the world, in Ireland, in Cork? How to get involved?

Tour of the Hollies Centre for Sustainability, Enninkeane.  This will include tours of the cob houses, the wood fired clay oven, organic garden, woodland, demonstrations of cob building, and food foraging. The tour date will be set once we meet as a group and we will settled on date convenient to everyone. 

Course Lecturer:

Thomas Riedmuller Hns BA , originally from Germany, has been in Ireland since 1998. Thomas is a co-founder of The Hollies Centre of Practical Sustainability ttp://thehollies.ie  He teaches Permaculture Design and other modules at Kinsale College and works as a freelance Communication Trainer and Mediator.

Entry Requirements:

Applicants must be at least 18 years old at course commencement.

Contact Details for Further Information

Email: shortcourses@ucc.ie