Fridayfest Climate Café - May

May's guest speaker is Roisin Markham.

Climate Café evolved from the weekly drop-in drawing sessions FridayFest, initiated by artist Elida Maiques. Since many of these conversations involve climate and ecology, the Mermaid Arts Centre decided to support it with a series of talks and informal meetups.

The Climate Café is connected to participatory projects including The Mermaid Garden Project, where local residents without their own green spaces can grow, compost and exchange horticultural knowledge in our urban garden. The focus is on medicinal, edible and native species and on the relationships forged while gardening.

Think of Climate Café as a site to share knowledge, spark action and seed future projects around climate action. Its loose framework allows alternative methods and research models. Each Climate Café we have a guest speaker and different activities, expect a lively event!

Roisin Markham lives near the sea in Cahore, North County Wexford. She is a steward to the land, 18 oaks and a Crann Fia Úll in their place. Where she raised three free-range sons that have gone to sing their own songs in the world. They have started to come back, it’s very confusing! At home its mostly the dogos, her hero husband and her aspirations to create a food forest. She grows food badly and makes terrible tiktoks about it.

She believes that a low carbon Post-Growth Society is the future worth living into. A time traveler working with future and current ancestors this is the answer to the climate and biodiversity crisis.

Let nature regenerate, where possible 30% should be given back to nature immediately.To be a good ancestors is to pull our impact back within planetary boundaries and create a strong social foundation where no one falls short of life’s essentials.

She also believes if we want to live in a democracy, then we have to practice it and use our public voices.