A festival celebrating botany, botanical art and the beauty and biodiversity of Bantry Bay
The Ellen Hutchins Festival runs in the Bantry Bay area as part of Heritage Week in August. This year – 2026 – the dates are Saturday 15th August to Sunday 23rd August, with events in Bantry, Glengarriff, Ballylickey, Coomhola, Ballydehob, Kealkill and on Whiddy Island and the Sheep’s Head Peninsula.
The Festival includes a wide range of events designed to encourage people of all ages to explore the natural and cultural heritage of Bantry Bay. Most events are free, many need to be booked and booking is now open. Use the Festival Programme button to see the full event listings.
The festival kicks off with a day of seaweed and seashore events events for adults and families on Saturday 15th August.
There is a series of guided botany walks and workshops during the festival including at Esk Mountain on Monday 17th, urban wildflowers on Tuesday 18th in Bantry, a fern identification workshop on Thurs 20th, lichens on Friday 21st afternoon in Glengarriff Woods, a nature walk along the Coorycommane Loop on Saturday 22nd and ‘couch to five grasses’ on Sunday 23rd. Other outdoor events include a geology walk in Coomhola and pre-historic landscapes in Inchigeelagh.
Wednesday 19th has free children’s nature art activities in the gardens of Bantry House. Other exciting nature-based art activities for children include papermaking in Ballydehob and Animal Art Club sessions in Bantry. Free family / children’s outdoor events include Junior Rangers in Glengarriff Woods on Thurs 20th and a family trail – Plant Detectives in the Peace Park in Bantry including the use of microscopes on Saturday 22nd.
For creative adults there are a whole range of workshops including botanical art with Shevaun Doherty, a nature art workshop with Sue van Coppenhagen, letter-writing with quill and ink with Carrie O’Flynn, green sketching with Anne Harrington Rees, seaweed pressing and poetry in Bantry with Frances Gallagher and Annette Skade, seaweed pressing with Farriage in Ahakista, urban forage and illustrate in Bantry with Samuel Arnold Keane and Megan Clancy Hayes, basket making with Ciara Strange and Yvon Flynn, and oak gall ink making with Sonia Caldwell within a whole programme of arts and crafts linked to plant material in Ballydehob.
Ellen’s life and work will be explored in ‘Ellen Hutchins: A Conservation’ in Bantry Library, readings in nature with Karen Minihane and archive sessions in Ballylickey and Bantry.
Two special new events in 2026 include a Biodiversity Day in Kilcrohane organised by the Sheep’s Head Biodiversity Group and a Water Heritage Day event in Glengarriff Nature Reserve with Ellen Murphy (LAWPRO).
We are very grateful to our funders for the 2026 Festival:
Cork County Council and the Heritage Council under the County Heritage Plan Funding 2025
County Cork Arts Grant: Children’s Nature Art sessions
Bantry Credit Union: Children’s Nature Art sessions
Inspired by Ireland’s first female botanist, the Ellen Hutchins Festival takes place in and around Bantry Bay, West Cork every August. Ellen was born in Ballylickey in 1785 and the inaugural festival was initiated to commemorate the 200th anniversary of her death in 2015. The festival is now an annual event and for the last ten years has taken place over nine days each year during Heritage Week.
The festival includes a wide range of events designed to encourage people of all ages to explore the natural and cultural heritage of Bantry Bay.
The sections below show what has been covered in previous years under each theme.
The archives has reports and programmes of previous festivals. See Festival Archives
