Could a day when we celebrate Irishness become a day when we are proud of our greenness? This was the question Claire Anne Tobin asked when she posted on social media about planting a tree with her grandmother to mark St Patrick’s Day in 2020. Her post sparked 30 groups and communities responding to say they were interested in doing something similar. Could they mark the patron saint’s day differently, she wondered.
“I have this thing about celebrations,” Tobin says. “And I wanted to be able to do something to mark them. It’s about how we show our love and how we show our care.” She wondered about reinventing the day when “everybody wants to be Irish” into a day when we take action for the environment, small or large. “Instead of wearing something green, do something green,” she says.
And so The Green Roots Project was born. Like me, Tobin was interested to see matron St Brigid being born a full eco-warrior with her first public holiday this month, straddling pagan and Christian worlds with her feet firmly on fertile earth. So in these weeks between celebrations, can we retrofit Paddy’s Day with purpose and action towards a healthier greener future?
“I would love if St Patrick’s Day would be an international day of climate action,” she says. She would like us to set our clocks to assess our great green things in the past year and make plans for new ones. The traditional planting of potatoes, already in gardener’s calendars for the bank holiday, is a climate-friendly act, growing food locally and reducing waste.
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Tobin describes herself as a creative climate communicator. As part of the Green Roots Project, 10 schools are taking part in a “Grow Your Green Cloak” project set between St Brigid’s Day and St Patrick’s Day. Teachers can still apply for a teaching pack which covers nature, biodiversity and circular economy, with a plan of action to make something like a bird feeder or to plant a tree.
On St Patrick’s Day, Tobin and her colleagues from the Green Roots Project will be at Epic museum as part of the “This is Not Us” exhibition looking at what it means to be Irish and what it means to be green, to regenerate what she calls the “beautiful energy” behind St Patrick’s Day into community and individual actions for climate and nature.
“It’s accessible. The original call was how do you go green from behaviour changes to planting a tree … we’re also asking people to notice what they’re doing on the day. Do we have to drink from plastic cups? Could you take public transport to the parade?”
Reimagining Patrick as an eco-saint? Our roots might be showing in a good way. Share your actions with #howwillyougogreen or #thegreenrootsproject.