Weathering life together

Belturbet Hens' Shed celebrating 10 years

The weather, appropriately enough, is often among the first things they talk about when Belturbet Hen's Shed meet on Wednesday mornings. This is Cavan after all, where there is always some change in the skies worth discussing.

Standing on stage before around 90 women in the Slieve Russell's Cranaghan Suite last Wednesday (June 3) is Joanna Donnelly - meteorologist, author and former RTÉ weather presenter. For three decades she has explained storm systems, climate shifts and changing conditions to the nation.

She is speaking at the tenth anniversary celebration of Belturbet Hen's Shed, a milestone that may sound modest on paper. Yet, like many things that quietly shape lives, its impact has travelled much further than first forecast.

Some members arrive early to sit beside old friends. Others have not seen each other in weeks. Women have travelled from Belturbet, Ballyconnell, Milltown, Redhills, Cavan Town, Ballinagh and Mullahoran. Some accents still carry traces of Dublin, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany and Canada. There are women who have known one another for decades and others who, until recently, were complete strangers.

Every Wednesday the group meets at the Goods Store at Belturbet Railway Station. A kettle hisses, chairs scrape across the floor and someone arrives with biscuits. There are hugs, updates, condolences, birthday wishes, practical advice and plenty of chat. At one stage there was even a demonstration on using air fryers.

It is not the sort of thing that makes headlines, yet for almost a decade it has been changing lives in ways difficult to measure.

Current chairperson Maureen Tully moves through the room greeting members and ensuring everything runs smoothly. Like many people involved in successful community groups, she seems to be managing several things at once.

Six years ago, she was a newcomer herself.

A native of Limerick, she and her husband Jim moved from Dublin to his home parish of Staghall during Covid. Like many people relocating to rural communities, she found herself surrounded by people but disconnected from them. She knew her husband's family and very few others. What she found in the Hen's Shed was more than a social outlet.

“I always call it my virtual hammock,” she says. “It lifted me up.”

The phrase has become something of an unofficial motto during her year as chair. A hammock supports you before the fall ever happens, she explains. It carries the weight without drawing attention to itself.

Today she speaks about finding her “tribe”.

“I've always said home is Limerick,” she says. “Now I find myself saying here is home.”

Across the room sits Emer Hyland. When she moved to Belturbet 15 years ago after years travelling around Europe with her husband Patrick, she knew almost no one.

“Not a soul,” she recalls.

Patrick found companionship through the Belturbet Men's Shed. Emer found hers through the Hen's Shed.

“It's a wonderful outlet to meet people,” she says. “They're a great bunch, really. As Maureen usually says, it's like a great big hammock. They hold you up.”

Bernie McCabe joined in early 2024. She had delayed attending because she too was worried she would know no one.

“I was putting it off saying I won't know anybody there,” she remembrs.

It is a feeling most people recognise - standing at the edge of a room wondering whether everyone else already belongs.

Then she walked in.

It turned out to be a “blessing”, she says.

“Everybody is so friendly to one another even if you don't know them.”

The origins of the Hen's Shed are surprisingly simple.

Back in 2016, Cavan Arts Officer Karina Charles had an idea. The Men's Shed movement was thriving. Why not create something similar for women?

Partly, she admits, the name began as a joke.

“I was a bit tongue-in-cheek, and I called it a Hen's Shed.”

Behind the humour was something more serious. Karina was thinking about her mother Margaret, a former nurse at Cavan General Hospital who had spent decades caring for others. Like many women of her generation, she gave little thought to creating space for herself.

Karina wanted to create a place where women could form friendships and discover new interests. Ironically, her mother initially refused to attend.

Week one passed. No sign of Margaret.

Week two passed. Still no sign.

By week three Karina resorted to strategy.

“I told her I needed help making teas.”

Eventually Margaret came along. Then she returned, becoming one of countless women whose lives became intertwined with the group.

At first there were just over a dozen attendees. Then a few more. Then more again.

Today the group has close to 160 active members. Looking around the anniversary celebration, Karina sees the result of that early perseverance - friendships and connections built year after year.

It is striking how many women tell similar stories. Their arrival at the Hen's Shed often coincided with a major life change:

A move.

A retirement.

A bereavement.

A period of loneliness.

Like the weather, life is always changing.

When Karina and co-founder Emer Henry stepped away only months after the group began, its future was uncertain. Many organisations never survive that moment.

Hilary McPhilips from Redhills remembers it clearly.

The first chairperson of the Hen's Shed had joined on day one while navigating a difficult chapter in her own life.

“I was lying at home on the sofa, not in a very good place,” she admits.

Yet she saw the group's potential immediately.

When the founders moved on, she gathered a small committee.

Five women. Five events.

“Let's see what happens,” she said. “I felt there was a foundation there.”

Here the stories begin to overlap.

The shed became a place to learn, laugh, complain, create, grieve, organise and occasionally escape.

Over the years there have been CPR courses, cookery demonstrations, wreath-making, line dancing, Citizens Information talks, sound baths and emotional intelligence workshops. Members taught one another skills ranging from painting plates to Mary O'Reilly's decoupage lessons.

There were overnight trips, fundraising events, appearances in the Belturbet May Day Parade and ambitious projects such as Women on the Border, which secured €10,000 through the Shared Island Civic Society Fund.

During lockdown, when isolation threatened to deepen, the Hen's Shed divided into pods of ten, with members checking in on one another. They picked up phones, shared bread, flowers and homemade jam, and knocked on doors.

“We were there for each other all throughout,” says Hilary.

In a town shaped by decades of Border life, people understand the importance of places where differences can be set aside. Religion stays outside. Politics stays outside. Over the past decade the Hen's Shed has become a place where friendships flourish regardless - a community within a community.

“It has grown from strength to strength,” says Hilary proudly.

The story that means most to her remains a small one. It's of two women, both recently widowed. Once strangers living on opposite sides of Belturbet - a town divided by a bridge, loyalties on the football pitch and debates over which parish lays claim to the bigger half of Turbet Island.

But one day Hilary spotted them sitting together in a local café sharing lunch.

Even now her voice softens and eyes brighten as she remembers it.

“That to me showed me just how the shed was working.”