Tag: cross-border

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Community Outcomes Pilgrimage

Pilgrim Product Development

PILGRIMAGE

Pilgrim Product Development

As part of Ancient Connection’s business support strand, we worked with a number of businesses in Pembrokeshire to develop new bespoke tourism products that linked in with the new pilgrimage route. Five businesses were supported to develop and test the following products:

Pilgrim Tokens

St Davids Cathedral designed and produced beautiful pilgrim tokens, pendants and pilgrim bags with the with the bee of St Aidan and the dove of St David forming the basis of their design. These are now for sale in St Davids Cathedral shop and the Ferns Medieval Experience.

 Click here to visit the St Davids Catherdral Online Shop.

Art Photography Book

Karel Jasper’s art photography book documenting her Creative Camino 2022 experience is now printed and distributed to local gift and bookshops in North Pembrokeshire.

To buy a copy of the book, Click here to visit Karel’s website.

Pilgrim Merchandise

Ditsy Puffin Designs have created a catalogue of pilgrim merchandise for a more budget market (e.g. mugs, pin badges, water bottles etc.) for sale in various outlets in Pembrokeshire and Wexford as well as online.

These are now on sale. Click here to visit Ditsy Puffins website.

International Walking Tour Product

Waterford Camino Tours have now developed a new guided pilgrimage product ‘St Davids Way’, along the Pembrokeshire section of the route, marketed to Irish and North American tourists.

Click here to see Waterford Camino Tour’s offering.

Pilgrimage On Wheels

North Pembrokeshire Trade and Tourism have developed a mini-bus pilgrimage aimed at cruise ship visitors and those who, for whatever reason are unable to access the new pilgrimage route on foot. It starts in Goodwick and ends at St Davids and visits many of the important spots along the pilgrimage route in between.

The product is now publically available and bookable on their website. Click here to view.

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Community Outcomes Pilgrimage

Wexford Pembrokeshire Pilgrim Way

PILGRIMAGE

Wexford Pembrokeshire Pilgrim Way

The new pilgrim Route between Ferns in County Wexford and St Davids in Pembrokeshire is a major legacy of the Ancient Connections project. 

Click here for more information on the route, guided pilgrimages, accommodation, transport and pilgrim passports.  

In addition an Outdoor Active app was developed that includes an interactive digital map which runs using GPS technology, route content, turn-by-turn guide, and audio interpretation guide produced for 18 locations.

Click here to view the route on the Outdoor Active App

Pilgrim image Abercastle
Cnoc na dTobar Pilgrim path lower res
pilgrims landscape
Pilgrims to St Nons Credit - Ruth Jones
pilgrims
stick landscape pilgrimage
BPT Over Kittuck Barrows
in-the-preselis-opt
Sr Declan's Way
Screenshot 2020-02-07 19.58.35
Screenshot 2020-02-07 19.58.35
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Archive Pilgrimage

The Pilgrims from the Sea Pilgrimage

PILGRIMAGE

The Pilgrims from the Sea Route

The Pilgrims from the Sea route connects early Christian coastal settlements and religious sites from Pontfaen to Llanrhian, taking in significant places of interest along the way, such as the holy well at Llanllawer, which is enclosed in a vaulted chamber, and the Church of St Gwyndaf at Llanwnda, the site of the last invasion of Britain.

Full Pilgrimage PDF
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Archive Pilgrimage

The Bishops Road Pilgrimage

PILGRIMAGE

The Bishops Road Route

The route from Llawhaden to St Davids is an ancient highway. It follows the Landsker: the
divide between Cymro-Norman and Welsh Pembrokeshire. Roman work to improve the route west of Carmarthen has been traced as far as Wiston. During the Middle Ages, pilgrims would have followed this ancient way as they journeyed to the shrine at St Davids Cathedral, guided by ancient waymarkers and resting at hospices along the way.

Full Bishops Road PDF
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Archive Pilgrimage Reports

Cross Border Pilgrimage

PILGRIMAGE

Cross Border Pilgrimage

Download Feasibility Study

The purpose of this feasibility study was to investigate whether a modern cross-border pilgrimage tourism product and route could be sustainably developed between the town of Ferns in County Wexford, Ireland and the city of St Davids in Pembrokeshire, Wales, using the Stena Ferry which crosses the Irish Sea from Rosslare in Ireland to Fishguard in Wales as the link.

In order to inform this work, over 60 key stakeholders, evenly spread between the two territories were contacted, with follow up video conference calls. Stakeholder contacts were generated by the project officers in each territory. Questionnaires were sent to all, with 30 being returned completed.

We then combined our previous consultancy experience and lessons learnt from recent work on walking and cycling trails, the Wales Coast Path and the National Trails of Wales with the feedback from stakeholders to undertake an options appraisal based on what we learned.

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Archive Community

The Little Things

Community Project

The Little Things

Village Voices, an established community drama and music team based in Llangwm, will be leading this ambitious cross-border project to create a new community Rock Opera called ‘The Little Things’ based on the lives of St Aidan and St David. They will be collaborating with Ferns Choir in Wexford, who will form the core chorus group in Wexford, and draw in other singers from the Enniscorthy and Gorey areas. Librettist Peter George has been devising the storyline, which is set in the future, where environmental decline inspires people to look to these early ascetic saints for inspiration. St David’s simple lifestyle, respect for the natural world and his axiom ‘Do ye the Little Things’ provides a new vision for the future.

Sam Howley is the musical director for the project, and the team are working to engage mirror partners over in Wexford. Main characters and chorus groups will be drawn from both regions to create a truly cross-border community extravaganza to be performed in St Davids and Wexford in 2022-23.

“This project will draw together people from the communities of North Wexford and North Pembrokeshire and provides an innovative and educational focus for the future as well as opportunities for developing friendships and meaningful collaborative links through the medium of music.” – Liz Rawlings, Village Voices

The project will begin in early 2021 with online rehearsals led by Sam Howley, who will be teaching the groups two of the chorus numbers as well as working with lead part singers to develop solo songs.

Date: November 2020 – March 2023

Project Outputs: Community Rock Opera

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Archive Arts

Artists Commissions

Arts Project

Artists Commissions

Ancient Connections has commissioned four new artists’ commissions, exploring some interlinked themes that are at the heart of the project including: pilgrimage, connecting with the Celtic diaspora of Ireland and Wales and our relationships to sacred places such as holy wells, chapels and ancient sites.

The artists will produce new artworks over the next two years, inspired by their own research as well as the findings uncovered by the Ancient Connections teams of story gatherers, community researchers and archaeologists. Each artist is expected to create work that can be shared online, in order to engage with both local audiences and with people much further afield such as Australia and North America, where there are significant communities of people with Irish and Welsh ancestry. The artists will also present their work in a final public showing in both Wexford and Pembrokeshire in 2022.

The four artists are Seán Vicary and Linda Norris, who are both visual artists based in West Wales, and artist/archaeologist John Sunderland and writer Sylvia Cullen, based in Ireland’s south-east.

Linda Norris

‘Williams Leatham Plate’ from Cân yr Oer Wynt series, ceramic decal on vintage china

Linda Norris proposes to use ‘sherds’ or found pottery fragments as the starting point for her project, encouraging people to send sherds to her and locate them on an online map. She says:

“Far from the glamour of precious metal hordes or celebrated monuments, sherds speak of anonymous domestic stories and link us with the people who lived in our homes in the past. I propose to initiate a ‘citizen archaeology’ project in Pembrokeshire and Wexford, and extending into the Celtic Diaspora. I will be researching people who emigrated from these regions to the Diaspora in the 19th century and trying to trace their descendants.”

See More

Seán Vicary

'Field Notes RAF St Davids'

Multi-media artist Seán Vicary recently discovered that his great-grandmother was born in 1874, just 3.5 miles from Ferns in Camolin, and he seeks to:

“Understand the forces that shaped me living here across the water from my great grandmother’s home. By excavating my own past, I’ll undertake a process that mirrors the archaeological and historical research underway in both communities”.

He will be discovering ‘hidden narratives’ in the landscape and creatively working them into an engaging personal travelogue that moves back and forth between Pembrokeshire and Wexford.

“Voice, text, music, film and animation will combine to evoke these places in an exciting, contemporary way; building a deeper sense of identity through sharing experiences of reconnection”.

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John Sunderland

'The Shooting Hut' (Site 1, Visit 9) from the project 'Touching Darkness' (2019)

Trained archaeologist and visual artist John Sunderland will be undertaking a pilgrimage from Whitesands to Ferns and excavating found objects along the route for the creation of a reliquary alongside pinhole photographic work. Rather than approaching this like an analytical contemporary archaeologist, he hopes to examine his discoveries with a mediaeval mindset, paying attention to “the supernatural or the sacred, to questions of good and evil, signs or portents”.

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Sylvia Cullen

Cover of Sylvia Cullen’s play The Thaw, commissioned by the Arts Council of Ireland, produced by the Courthouse Arts Centre in Tinahely, published by New Island Books, inspired by the people of North Wexford, South Wicklow and East Carlow.

Writer Sylvia Cullen proposes to create a bespoke new series of short stories for podcasts or livestreaming, drawing on “dramatic tales of piracy and bootlegging along the Welsh and Irish coastlines” and haunting tales of sacred places or a longing for home. She will also run creative writing workshops in both communities.

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Watching these projects evolve separately and then ultimately weave together in a final presentation will be a journey of discovery for both the project team and our audiences.

Date: August 2020 – December 2022

Funded by: Ancient Connections

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Archive Arts

Fern Thomas Artist in Residence Pembrokeshire

Artist in Residence

Fern Thomas – Artist in Residence Pembrokeshire

YNYS: “…and as the relics, stones, bones and stories from both places washed out to sea, a new island was formed right in the middle. A shared place for culture, history, dreams, poetry and song from all time to live alongside each other. And from this place, a radio station was formed and began to transmit…”

“For this project I am creating a radio station that ‘transmits’ from YNYS, a fictional island located between Pembrokeshire and Wexford. YNYS takes its initial response from the erosion on Whitesands Bay, which exposed the buried chapel of St Patrick. The project considers the potential, through coastal erosion, for all of this history to be washed away – that somehow these coastal places are living right at the precipice, or at the very edge of history.” – Fern Thomas

Click here to listen to Fern’s radio transmissions

 

A Place of the Past and Future

“Taking this as a broader image I am imagining Pembrokeshire’s history washing into the sea while simultaneously Wexford’s history does the same, and from here they move towards one another and meet somewhere in the middle to form a fictional island. An island where St David can sit alongside the three young men from Wexford in their borrowed canoe; where the fire of Boia’s hill fort or the mermaids off Porth y Rhaw are as present as the eroding sand at Whitesands bay. A place where the past and the future are simultaneously considered.

This audio work will exist as several episodes which will follow the development of the Ancient Connections project where I will weave together excerpts of interviews with community members and participants in the Ancient Connections project alongside folklore, historical research, myths, field recordings from the sites, and sounds from archives as well as the present day to create an audio telling from this timeless land.”

“Embedded in the broadcasts I will offer poetic responses inspired by the questions being asked within the project as it develops, following the mysteries, the stories and the revelations as the Ancient Connection project unfolds.

The radio station’s content will be shaped by communities of Pembrokeshire and also of Wexford through public engagement events and one to one conversations.” – Fern Thomas

Date: July 2020 – August 2022

Learn More at: 

www.fernthomas/ynys.com

Project Outputs: 
Podcasts, a ceremonial event and an exhibition

Categories
Archive Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage overview – rationale for a new route

Arts Project

Pilgrimage overview - rationale for a new route

Pilgrimage is an ancient concept; stretching back through history across cultural and religious boundaries, historical and economic spectrums, regardless of race or gender. It has been argued that pilgrimage fulfils a basic human need to reconnect to oneself through the simple process of putting one foot in front of another on the destination to a sacred or special place.

Ancient Connections is rediscovering historic links and ancient stories that connect the communities and culture of North Pembrokeshire with their counterparts on the East coast of Wexford. In particular, it is exploring the link between the city of Saint Davids and the village of Ferns, two significant sites associated with the early Celtic church. St Aidan studied in Wales with St David and after this he journeyed to Wexford where he set up his own monastery in Ferns.

St Davids has been a place of pilgrimage since the middle ages and still is. People are drawn to the area for many reasons for refreshment of body, mind and soul. It is recognised as a special place, a ‘thin’ place in Celtic terms, a place where hearts are opened and emotions are touched.

Modern day pilgrimage isn’t necessarily religious or even spiritual but an opportunity for reflection, connection and discovery; perhaps finding a new sense of purpose, direction and wellbeing. Pilgrimage in modern times is becoming increasingly popular with TV programmes such as Pilgrimage; The Road to Rome and The Road to Santiago. The Santiago de Compostella pilgrim trail, which was boosted through EU funding in 1987, has been a major success story with numbers increasing from under 3,000 per year to over 300,000 now.

A New Route - Wexford Pembrokeshire Pilgrim Way

2023 will commemorate 900 years since Pope Callixtus II declared two pilgrimages to St Davids equal to one to Rome. This date and the Ancient Connections project are a launch pad from which to start building a pilgrimage route on both sides of the Irish Sea. Could pilgrimage/transformational tourism be as successful in Wexford and Pembrokeshire as it has been in Northern Spain?

Ancient Connections is working with the British Pilgrimage Trust to create the new route. In May 2022, the trailblazing Creative Camino pilgrimage took place, an experimental journey led by guides from Journeying based in Pembrokeshire and Wexford Trails. Traveling with them were a group of artists and community pilgrims, who responded creatively to the experience. 

The route has now been mapped and will be open to the public in 2023 for guided and self-guided tours. Currently, there are opportunities to trial the route on day trips led by experienced guides. Visit the website for more information on the route and how you can get involved

Wexford Pembrokeshire Pilgrim Way

Date: Ongoing

Categories
Archive Arts Community

Animating Schools

Arts Project

Animating Schools

Animating Schools brings three schools together for the ambitious creation of a short animation film telling the stories of connection between these two regions. The participating schools are Ysgol Penrhyn Dewi in St Davids, Pembrokeshire, Scoil Naomh Maodhog Ferns and St Edan’s School, both in Ferns, County Wexford.

In March 2020, the project kicked off with a group of aged 12-13 plus staff traveling from St Davids to Ferns to meet and get to know their peers in the Ferns schools. The pupils in all three schools have been learning about their own heritage stories, as well as the stories that link these two regions through working with Fishguard based storyteller Deb Winter and Wexford based Lorraine O’Dwyer. In Ferns, the young people performed their stories to each other as well as sharing musical performances of contemporary and traditional pieces.  

“I just wanted to send a HUGE thank you from all at Ysgol Penrhyn Dewi for the amazing visit we had to Ireland. The pupils and I were so ‘blown away’ by the incredibly warm Irish welcome and every aspect of our visit was perfect! The arrival at Scoil Maodhog was moving and our pupils are now texting, snap chatting/what’s-apping etc. and looking forward to the return visit. All the excursions were fabulous and informative and when I asked pupils what their favourite aspect of the trip was, not one of them could decide as there were just too many things to pick from.”

Cilla Bramley, Head of Expressive Arts at Ysgol Penrhyn Dewi

The project is due to recommence in March 2021, and Cardiff based animation studio Winding Snake will be assisting the young people to creatively retell these stories through different animation techniques, culminating in a short film that will be screened in venues and online in 2021-22.

“The team at Winding Snake are thrilled to be working with the schools involved as part of this exciting and historic project.  We can’t wait to get stuck in and start making! The young people taking part will work with us to create animation, learn musical composition, make foley and sound effects, participate in script writing and storytelling sessions, and will work with professional actors to learn acting and performance skills. With lots and lots of arts and craft thrown into the mix too, it’s going to be a wonderful project.” 

Amy Morris, Director of Winding Snake

A short documentary film about the project will also be created by filmmaker Terence White based in Wexford.

Date: March 2020 – Jan 2022

Project Outputs: A short animated film

Learn More at: www.windingsnake.com