WORKING
WALLED GARDENS
Reviving Ireland’s historic walled gardens as spaces for local food growing, community connection and shared stewardship.
We are aiming to help Ireland reach its target of 10,000 community gardens by 2035, by helping walled garden owners and growers work together to revive these spaces
Ireland's opportunity
Heritage experts agree that there are likely more than 5,000 walled gardens in Ireland. Most lie empty or underused, yet they are some of the best growing spaces we have. The walls hold warmth for fruit, the soil has often been cultivated for over a century and they were built to feed whole communities, not just individual households, with one acre often supporting a dozen families.
Some of these gardens have outlived the estates and houses they once served. Some are still in private hands, simply waiting for the right use. A recent survey by Historic Houses of Ireland, funded by Creative Ireland, found that many private owners are genuinely keen to work with their local communities to make use of these spaces again.
New legislation now requires every county council to plan for allotments and community gardens in their area.
Working Walled Gardens aims to help connect that policy ambition with these spaces, designed for growing food, yet sitting dormant across the country.
For nearly all of human history, people grew their own food. That changed only in the last century, and basic skills like planting a seed or peeling a potato are starting to quietly disappear: the fundamental know-how to feed ourselves that once simply passed from one generation to the next.
Food sovereignty
82% of Ireland’s fruit and vegetables are imported. Very little land is dedicated to growing food, and we’ve lost a significant share of our commercial vegetable growers in recent years.
Social isolation
Working gardens can bring people together - across generations, backgrounds and abilities. The case for this work reaches beyond horticulture. Gardening brings multiple positive benefits to every generation and contributes towards building a better society that is responding to the climate crisis.
Biodiversity loss
Walled gardens are safe bounded spaces to cultivate biodiversity and combat the loss we have been experiencing. They are places to rediscover and rescue heritage varieties. They also give children a safe space to connect with nature at the age it matters most,
Health & wellness
This matters even more as we learn about the link between fresh, unprocessed food and our health; and soil microbes, gut health and mental wellbeing. Work in walled gardens offers a welcome antidote to screens and sedentary days, reminding us that food production used to equate to body movement.
Connecting owners, councils & communities
Walled gardens, once vital components of historic landscapes, need careful stewardship. Most can no longer be maintained by a single family and therefore their future needs to be reimagined.
We are developing a social enterprise to connect community groups with garden owners, working alongside local county council officers, with the aim of creating a well-researched, replicable template for sustainable community growing in historic walled gardens across Ireland, using a methodology that has been tried and tested, and promoting current best practice to make the growing easier.
We start every garden project with honest conversations between owners and growers, about how decisions get made, who the produce is for, and what each side can expect from the other. Agreeing that early, together, will matter more than any contract that comes after.
