Lúcháir is Irish for 'delight', related to the Scottish Gaelic luachair - the soft rush juncus effusus, (literally, 'glory, splendour'), and the Welsh llwych, ('lightmaker, a spark'). The pith of this plant was soaked in tallow and used to make rushlights and so by association the word 'lúcháir' came also to mean 'the gleam of light on water' - a flash of beauty, a moment of enlightenment, and in Celtic tradition, a glimpse of the other-world.
The Lúcháir Project started out with the intention of becoming a collaborative and multi-disciplinary two-year stretch which would raise awareness not only of the dangers we face in living beyond our ecological means, but of the possibility of a greatly enriched and enhanced life if we could connect, and cherish the earth and our neighbour, and come together to create something new and wonderful.
It didn't work out quite like that. I found that an awful lot of people were already active in this field. The Permaculture and Transition movements seemed to have got a lot of the social and practical issues covered, and, as I got more involved with it, the geo-poetics movement showed itself to be way ahead of me in terms of mapping out research areas and stimulating art projects. Also, I found that I can't create and collaborate at the same time. My creativity needs solitude as much as community, and when my head is buzzing with all the exciting stuff I find in the world or on the internet, I don't focus so well on my own work. Nevertheless, Lúcháir remains an important concept for me, as a guideline for my creative and ethical practice.It's the heart of everything I do.
The Lúcháir Project started out with the intention of becoming a collaborative and multi-disciplinary two-year stretch which would raise awareness not only of the dangers we face in living beyond our ecological means, but of the possibility of a greatly enriched and enhanced life if we could connect, and cherish the earth and our neighbour, and come together to create something new and wonderful.
It didn't work out quite like that. I found that an awful lot of people were already active in this field. The Permaculture and Transition movements seemed to have got a lot of the social and practical issues covered, and, as I got more involved with it, the geo-poetics movement showed itself to be way ahead of me in terms of mapping out research areas and stimulating art projects. Also, I found that I can't create and collaborate at the same time. My creativity needs solitude as much as community, and when my head is buzzing with all the exciting stuff I find in the world or on the internet, I don't focus so well on my own work. Nevertheless, Lúcháir remains an important concept for me, as a guideline for my creative and ethical practice.It's the heart of everything I do.
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