Ballintober Biodiversity Trail

This project aimed to overlay a self-guided nature tour upon an existing looped walk in the countryside outside Ballintober Co. Roscommon, which joins on to the Suck Valley Way, a larger walking trail that runs near the village. Ballintober is well known for its 17th century castle and is surrounded by an agricultural landscape, criss-crossed by hedges and treelines. The Biodiversity Trial was recommended by Flynn Furney’s own Billy Flynn as part of the Ballintober Tidy Towns plan and it was decided that it would be facilitated by a series of QR codes located around the village and along the looped countryside walk that would link to a website containing relevant ecological information that those walking the trail could view by smartphone.

A Flynn Furney ecologist met with representatives from the Tidy Towns group in the summer of 2021 and they walked the trail, identified appropriate locations for the QR codes and conducted a simple ecological survey. The findings of the survey were then written into a series of digestible points and a photoshoot for each location was carried out. Together, with partners from the Colouring Department, the edited photos and biodiversity information were compiled into a website, linked to each QR point, which can either be accessed through the Ballintober website or from the QR codes along the trail.