Untamed Gardening: ‘Among what rushes?’

- Aisling Blackburn -

It was a very nice weekend, making baskets down in Moate in the Dun an Sí heritage centre. Not from willow but from our native club rush Schoenoplectus lacustris. Formally know as English bull rush and sometimes written as Scirpus lacustris. In their infinite wisdom taxonomists do their best to clear matters up regarding the scientific naming of plants. But we need no help getting confused, as each region tends to give their own common usage names, for example, clocks, and piss-the-bed for dandelions.

The bull rushes in Ireland are otherwise known as Great reed mace or Typhia latifolia, with a cigar like flower, they are more of a marginal plant and not to be found in the deeper end of the lake, unlike the club rush; a fact which makes them tricky to harvest, and could be one reason that this is a dying art.

After having dabbled with willow basketry, I discovered the joys of rush basketry.

Far gentler on the hands, and like straw, it has a beautiful gold colour with tones of green and bronze, fading to a sandy colour over time.

Incidentally, straw retains its golden shine - I have an egg basket, three years old or so and it’s as glossy and bright as the day it was made. I digress for a second.

Over Leitrim way, a lovely community project began a couple of years ago, of sowing old varieties of oats for the specific tasks of making mummers hats, full costumes, baskets and all sorts - (Wren boys at Christmas and Biddy boys on Brigid’s day, Strawboys at weddings).

Songs were sung and dances danced throughout the preparing and harvesting stages of its growth. Edwina Guckian instigated and oversaw this interweaving of music and dance while people from all over Leitrim and further afield sowed their oats.

Back to the club rush in the lake. I became inspired by the ‘Hands’ video about the harvesting and making of baskets on YouTube. ‘Hands’ was a famous series about Irish crafts made by RTE in 1978–89. If you have a DVD player, it is available in many libraries or on YouTube.

You will see, it is set in Strokestown Co. Roscommon where the tradition is still hanging on by a thread thanks to Patricia Ó Flaherty of Naomh Padraig Handcrafts.

I was trying to get some interested parties on board to go and harvest the rushes as it is ideally a group activity in familiar waters.

Then, Stephen McQuaid from the Share Centre in Lisnaskea, who is also a basket maker offered.

We donned life jackets and wetsuits and Stephen led a few of us out in canoes on Lough Erne to cut rushes.

It was a little late in the season as they are ready to cut in July; and not without risk, even for swimmers, but there are beautiful videos of rush harvesters on slow moving rivers in the UK, who seem to have it down to a fine art.

I think it is a very holistic craft, a day of fun on the lake and community gathering, followed by the drying and curing, then more coming together to share the skill of weaving beautiful objects as an annual event.

In the past rushes like these were used to make a range of useful items - ropes, roofing material, mattresses, mats and even buoyancy aids while learning to swim.

There are other species of rush that we are familiar with, growing in the fields, some considered a nuisance and others such as the flowering rush found only in this region, Butomus umbellatus, which isn’t a true rush at all.

The former maligned Juncus species were often used for rush lights and Brigid’s crosses, and are known in Irish as ‘luachair’.

They were also used prolifically in the past for strewing floors.

A saying collected by Anne O’Dowd in ‘Straw, Hay and Rushes in Irish Folk Traditions’ was: “If I knew you were coming, I’d shake green rushes for you”.

It took me a long time to find a tutor, so I am very happy with the little bag that I made this weekend, thanks to the tuition of Geradine Wisdom who teaches the craft in Tipperary. She pulls her own rushes by the way.

The plan is to get out early next summer and do it all over again.