Gillian O'Brien Gillian O'Brien

All roads lead to Rome

Sharing Lands is off to the UN FAO in Rome to take part in the World Food Forum. Working with our Choctaw partners we’re hosting an event about food security, food safety and what lessons we can learn from the past. Indigenous knowledge of farming systems has often been overlooked and our session with the Chata Foundation and other Indigenous organisations hope to open up new conversations and share knowledge about seeds, farming, agriculture and the culture and heritage of these.

Read More
Gillian O'Brien Gillian O'Brien

New Book - down under!

The Shortest History of Dublin explores the city’s restless inheritance – the ways in which Dublin remembers, forgets and remakes itself. It shows how Dublin's truest identity endures in the words of its greatest writers, from the likes of Joyce and Yeats to modern authors Roddy Doyle, Anne Enright, Sebastian Barry and Sally Rooney. And that the challenge of this city of music, writing, architecture and craic is to balance change with character, growth with memory.

Read More
Gillian O'Brien Gillian O'Brien

Kitty Wilkinson - Saint of the Slums

Kitty Wilkinson was an Irish immigrant to Liverpool in the 18th century, who is revered as the founder of the public washhouse and a pioneer in public hygiene. She saved countless lives during an 1832 cholera epidemic in Liverpool by allowing poor people in her neighbourhood to use her boiler to wash their clothes and bedding. She's a great example of the good one person can do, beginning with their own community and ultimately having a positive impact on thousands of lives.

Read More
Gillian O'Brien Gillian O'Brien

No rest for the wicked…

It’s been a busy few months…for anyone interested in commemoration & statues, Irish Architecture; pre-emancipation convents or Museums during & post-Covid there are some links here!

Read More
Gillian O'Brien Gillian O'Brien

The Cultural Heritage of Convents

Convents are (or were) ubiquitous, often dominating towns and villages. They were such a common feature of the landscape that they became almost invisible, and it is only now, as they are disappearing, that their significance is beginning to be recognised.

Read More