Boyne Rivers Trust Summer Newsletter

Summer Newsletter 2026

Thursday 23rd July 2026

We hope you’re enjoying the warm weather and the long evenings! Summer has been busy here at Boyne Rivers Trust, keep reading to find out what we’ve been up to.

Our Funders
Contractor Required: Tree Nursery Manager
BRT Features on RTÉ’s CountryWide
Water Heritage Day 2026: Picnic in the Park
Himalayan Balsam Awareness
River Clady Restoration Project
Riparian Woodlands Restoration
Water-friendly Farming Project
New Board Members
Farming for Nature Festival

Our Funders

Boyne Rivers Trust is extremely grateful for our supporters and funders, past and present, who enable our work through funding for projects and vital core costs. Below we have included a summary of this year’s funders.

Heritage Council - Heritage Organisations Support Fund

This fund supports our efforts across all projects, contributing to the costs of core operational work of the trust, including governance and staff costs, crucial for running our projects.

River Basin Management Service (formerly LAWPRO) – Catchment Support Fund

This fund provides an invaluable contribution to the Trust’s running costs and core costs which enable us to deliver our projects, including staff costs, insurance, accountancy fees, and group development activities.

River Basin Management Service (formerly LAWPRO) – Community Water Development Fund

This helpful fund contributes to our project costs, including materials, training, and contractors, for the implementation of our projects, such as maintaining our Tree Nurseries and conducting Ecological Surveys.

Community Foundation Ireland and National Parks and Wildlife Service – Biodiversity Fund

The Biodiversity Fund has helped to kick-start our River Clady Restoration Project, with funds covering project costs such as ecologist fees, communication materials, and community awareness events.

The Rivers Trust – Boyne Water Protection Project

This project has funded our Farm Advisor, who engages farmers throughout the Boyne Catchment, providing water-friendly farming advice and producing bespoke Farm Plans for Water Protection. This project is kindly supported by Tesco.

Fundraising

We are developing our Funding Strategy, to focus our efforts in 2026 on obtaining core funding to support the efforts of the Trust. This is vital for the Trust to run its various projects, hire staff, and cover general running costs of the organisation.

Boyne Rivers Trust is reaching out to potential partners and funders to support our mission. If you are or someone you know is interested in supporting our work, please get in touch at info@boyneriverstrust.ie

You can also make a donation on our website: https://www.boyneriverstrust.ie/support-us

Support Our Work

Contractor Required: Tree Nursery Manager

Boyne Rivers Trust is looking for a part-time Tree Nursery Manager on a contract basis, to help maintain our Tree Nurseries in Athboy, County Meath and Townley Hall, County Louth. The purpose of this role is to ensure production of healthy trees, maximise success rates of saplings and enable us to scale up the project and planting efforts.

Key Responsibilities include:

Seed collection, processing, and propagation
Managing nursery facilities
Weeding
Maintaining an inventory of seeds, saplings and planted trees
Training/knowledge sharing with the BRT team/volunteers
Supporting Floodplain Woodlands Project volunteer coordination

If you are interested and would like to chat, please send us an email at info@boyneriverstrust.ie

BRT Features on RTÉ CountryWide

We were delighted to feature on RTÉ’s CountryWide, interviewed by Philip Boucher-Hayes. We spoke about our collaboration with local farmers to restore riparian woodlands throughout the catchment through our Floodplain Woodlands Project and Water-friendly Farming Project. Philip was joined by Sarah (our Farm Advisor & Project Coordinator) and Farmer Rosaleen to talk about the plans for her farm, before catching up with Muireann (our Development Manager) at our Tree Nursery in Townley Hall. If you’d like to listen to the radio segment, you can do so on RTÉ’s website here: https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22604335/

Water Heritage Day 2026: Picnic in the Park

Boyne Rivers Trust is delighted to collaborate once again with the Solstice Arts Centre on their Take Me to the River series. Joining them at the “Picnic in the Park” on Sunday 23rd August 2026, we celebrate Water Heritage Day 2026 and all the Boyne has to offer in its natural, cultural and heritage value.

“Celebrating interconnections between biodiversity, archaeology, and Irish culture, join traditional craftspeople, artists, ecologists and local historians. Engage in seasonal customs, traditions and art making, while experiencing our natural, built, and archaeological heritage linked to the River Boyne along its northern banks.”

This event is sold out, but you can find out more and join the waiting list on the Solstice Arts Centre website.

Himalayan Balsam Awareness

Himalayan Balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) is an invasive species threatening our rivers and other habitats. It is commonly found in damp areas, such as the banks of rivers, streams and lakes, ditches, damp meadows, and woodlands, where it can form dense stands and outcompete native plants. It typically flowers from June to October, so now is a good time to learn to identify it!

Have you spotted it in your area? Let us know on info@boyneriverstrust.ie

Why Is it a Problem?

Biodiversity Loss: Himalayan Balsam is rapidly outcompeting our native plants for space, light and nutrients. This plant has been shown to reduce plant species richness by 25%.
Negative Water Quality Impact: When it dies off in autumn and winter, it leaves the banks bare of vegetation, causing bank erosion, sedimentation and nutrient enrichment of the river.
Spreads easily: Hanging explosive seed pods burst on touch when ripe, dispersing thousands of seeds up to 7m away.

What Can You Do?

Learn to identify Himalayan Balsam.
Join a "Balsam Bashing" activity - Himalayan Balsam is easy to remove!
Report sightings of invasive species to the National Biodiversity Data Centre.

We are looking for a small number of volunteers in the Slane area for some Balsam Bashing on the River Mattock. If you are interested, please drop us an email at info@boyneriverstrust.ie or call Sarah on 085 839 9297 for more information.

River Clady Restoration Project

As part of our restoration efforts on the River Clady near Navan, County Meath, we recently did some Balsam Bashing, clearing a stand of over 1000m2! We’ve also been busy with school workshops and landowner engagement along the river.

In summer 2025, we commissioned an ecological survey of the River Clady, during which several stands of Himalayan Balsam were identified. One particularly large stand, this year measuring 1,029m2, was our starting point! The landowner kindly gave us access to clear the stands of balsam; with their help, and that of ecologists at IDEC and volunteers, we cleared the area in great time!

We will monitor the area in the coming months for any remaining Himalayan Balsam plants. The seeds can survive in the soil for 2-3 years, so we plan to return over the next few years to remove any re-emerging balsam. Take a look at some before and after photos below.

In June, we visited the students of Dunderry National School to tell them about local wildlife and threats to the River Clady, in particular all the footballs in the river! Together, the students brainstormed ways to prevent footballs from getting in the river, which included “Stop driving the footballs over the fence!”, and telling an adult if they lose a football in or near the water. Below you’ll see some of their great artwork which will help us spread the word about the River Clady!

If you or anyone you know lives or farms along the River Clady and you’d like to chat about how we’re working to restore the river, please get in touch! You can email us at info@boyneriverstrust.ie

Students making River Clady Awareness Posters

Riparian Woodlands Restoration

We’ve recently installed an irrigation system in our tree nursery at Townley Hall – a welcome addition during this hot weather! Thanks to all our volunteers who kept the nursery watered until now, and who continue to help maintain it with weeding and potting up, among other things!

This work is part of our Floodplain Woodlands Restoration project, which aims to protect and restore native woodlands in the Boyne Catchment. In weather like this, we are reminded of the importance of trees in managing river temperatures. Trees provide shade and resulting cooler areas in the water, vital for river life such as our precious Salmon.

If you’d like to donate to our project, you can do so here: https://www.boyneriverstrust.ie/support-us

Water-friendly Farming Project

Over the past year, we have engaged 30 farmers from around the Boyne catchment on our Water-friendly Farming Project (“Boyne River Protection Project”). Each farmer received a Farm Visit by our Farm Advisor, Sarah, and a bespoke Farm Plan for Water Protection, with advice on management and interventions to protect water quality on their farms. Feedback has been excellent, and we look forward to continuing to work with the participating farmers to support them in implementing on-farm water protection measures, and planting trees from our Tree Nurseries along rivers.

New Board Members

We’re delighted to welcome our new board members, Angela Duffy, Joe Casey and Hannah Gilligan. We are already seeing their positive contribution to the work of the Trust, and we’re looking forward to what’s to come!

Farming for Nature Festival

We were delighted to attend the first ever Farming for Nature Festival! The event was a fantastic celebration of farmer-led innovation and environmental stewardship.

The quality of speakers and exhibitors was exceptional, with insightful talks from farmers and subject experts sharing practical advice and lessons learned in exploring various sustainable farming practices. We particularly enjoyed the talks and demonstrations on managing water resources on farms, including experiences constructing ponds and swales, and a rainfall simulator.

The event was a great opportunity to connect with others working in this field. It was inspiring to see so many passionate people coming together from across Ireland to share knowledge and drive positive change in agriculture.