According to Discover Ireland, WIT's Bealtaine festival is the “perfect way to spend a little time thinking about the earth”.
The 13th Bealtaine Living Earth Festival, the oldest and the biggest biodiversity festival in Ireland, was a great success with over 2,000 people exploring biodiversity and natural heritage across the southeast in a range of talks, workshops and outdoor guided walks and field trips – even the weather obliged!
Bealtaine highlights
All events in our school programme were booked out, and there was great demand for evening and weekend adult and family events. Over 100 people came on both the evening bat walk in Curraghmore and the dusk bird walk in Mount Congreve.
One of the highlights of the week was the WIT staff afternoon with Dave’s reptiles, spiders and scorpions . Parents and children alike were fascinated by the snakes and alligators - so much so that some parents are worried that their child will ask for a pet tarantula for their next birthday! Those that attended can get the professional photos that were taken on the day by emailing [email protected].
WIT’s Andrew Harrington, brought more than 100 visitors out to the beautiful Curraghmore Estate where he guided a brilliant walk through the woods and explained all about bats, their behaviour and their natural habitat.
Bealtaine partners
The Festival is a partnership of public bodies and NGOs coordinated by Calmast at WIT and introduces the public to the biodiversity and natural heritage of the South East. Festival partners include The Coppercoast Geopark, JFK Arboretum, Oceanics Discovery Centre, Native Woodland Trust, Garter Lane, Lismore Heritage Centre, Irish Wildlife Trust.
Bealtaine in the media
The organising team were delighted to get such prominent positive national media coverage for WIT through RTE’s recommendations for the weekend and Discover Ireland, who described the festival as the “perfect way to spend a little time thinking about the earth”. Apart from being covered by the Irish Examiner and The Irish Independent, photos of several events were featured in The Irish Times Images of the Day gallery. On an international level the festival was listed as Ireland’s contribution to the International Day of Biological Diversity 2017.
Bealtaine photos & information
Please visit the Bealtaine website or facebook page for more information and photos. You can also see a documentary of last year’s festival.
SETU Waterford, Cork Road, Waterford City, 
