Community publishing in Ennistymon

Artist Maeve Collins and I hosted a Community Publishing Press on July 8th in Ennistymon, Co Clare.

Our event brought together 18 women from the local community - including residents from direct provision centres and local advocacy groups such as the Irish Countrywomen’s Association - to explore what it means to be creative in rural Ireland today.

We started with some collaborative group work and meditation, using thematic prompts. These collaborative artworks were then used as the basis for each individual’s zine. We had a whole variety of creative materials available to make the zines – handmade stamps, paint markers, collage papers, textured scraps and more.

For many, it was their first time engaging with zine-making and it was really interesting to see what people came up with!

All the zines created were photographed and archived. Our hope is to get more funding to cover the cost of printing and posting participants copies of their own zines, along with additional copies of the other participants’ zines. We would also like to distribute them to community groups and spaces in Clare.

This event was kindly funded by Clare County Council.