Camphill Dunshane: a garden community
For those in Kilcullen who are relatively recently arrived, the Camphill Community is something they take for granted in the town. But for the rest of us, longer time residents here, this organisation which deals with and helps people who have a range of disabilities is both an incomer and now an integral part of Kilcullen that we never expected, nor, initially, fully understood.
That last has changed, of course. Because Camphill's connection with Kilcullen is now almost two decades old. Though maybe we're still learning.
"I was involved when we bought Dunshane House," says Michael Brave, the longest-serving Camphill person in the current Dunshane operation. Originally from Holland, he has been involved in Camphill in Ireland for 34 years, almost 20 of them in Dunshane.
"I was with Camphill for 14 years in Northern Ireland. When one of the parents of a child in another community told us that Dunshane was for sale, a group of us came and looked. The garden was absolutely beautiful. We thought it would turn anybody to be a gardener. It was the first house we looked at in the area, and we bought it."
Purchased from the Alexander family, the house needed a certain amount of refurbishment to suit the Camphill requirements. "With the first young people who came here, we renovated the house. We camped in it, and they spent the time pulling down wallpaper. And when the holidays came we sent them home, and hoped that they wouldn't continue stripping wallpaper ..."
It was thus the community at Dunshane began in 1986. It grew in numbers, and because classical music was an integral part of the Camphill ethos, they began bringing in musicians to perform in the largest room in the house. Apart from the need to provide a better musical ambience, the numbers in the community were outgrowing the capacity of the original house. Extension was required.
"There were also a lot of local people coming to see what these 'strange people' were doing, and so it was our aim to build something bigger," says Michael Brave. "So that's what we did. We built this house here (he points back to Teach na Greine, the 'house of the sun'). I designed most of it, with a round sitting room, and I lived for 14 years in that house. My children were brought up in it."
On the 28 acres that came with Dunshane, there was plenty of room to grow, and currently the 50-strong community is divided across the original house - in two sections - and Teach na Greine, along with a cottage at the rear, and the Silver Birch residence near the entrance to the estate. A brand new building is currently being constructed, which will be named Apple Orchard. There is a bakery, and a basketry workshop, as well as a number of other craft facilities. And, of course, the garden which had attracted Michael Brave and his compatriots in the first place.
"Many of the Camphill communities across Europe are much bigger," says Michael. "But in southern Ireland we kept them small, so that we can integrate with local communities." In the Dunshane case, that integration could very easily have been with Naas, not least because of the postal address. "From here we wanted to do something with a town. We looked at Naas, and we were actually on the point of buying the old police station - now the Court Hotel - when we realised that our real connections were with Kilcullen."
Michael recalls they had also realised that, in Naas, nobody was actually living on the Main Street any more. "We wanted to be part of a living community, and so we decided on Kilcullen."
The property they bought included a field on the river and a building close to the bridge that straddled the Liffey from which the original name Kilcullen Bridge had been derived.
Just across from their new 'Dunshane extension' they noticed that the Kilcullen Valley Park seemed neglected. "So a group of us went every day to the park and started cleaning there. Local people came and saw us doing this, and at first offered us ice creams, and later said they'd like to help."
The Camphill working group's answer was simple: 'bring a wheelbarrow and a spade, and you can help'. "It seems that they had been complaining that the County Council wasn't cleaning the park, and then they realised that it was their park, and they could do something." Such was how the Camphill Bridge Community got established in Kilcullen, first as an offshoot of Dunshane. Today it is very much an independent entity, with its own 'An Tearman' cafe and gift shop, an organic foods store, a weavery, residences, and a substantial horticultural enterprise.
But Dunshane is the 'mother ship'. And for Michael Brave, it is where he is the longest serving member of the staff, though not any longer in a 'Captain Kirk' role. "I've been here nearly 20 years. When one's child grows up to that age, it needs to go out into the world, and its parents have to learn to let go.
"I have had to learn to let other people take the community to the next step. They have other visions, and I am in that process of letting go, though I am staying here in physical terms."
What Dunshane is today is probably far from what former owners Broozy and Sheila Alexander might ever have dreamed their home might become. But this writer knew them both, and the house when they lived there. And, though they might have seemed an ill-assorted couple to many eyes, I suspect that, in their different ways, they would very much approve of what Dunshane is today.
Brian Byrne.
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