The Shaking Bog - Where Art and Nature Meet

Over time, as long as writing has existed, there’s been an ongoing relationship between literature and nature, profoundly connecting our inner imaginative world with the outer physical environment.

The Shaking Bog exists to highlight this burgeoning art form as a way of describing and nurturing the deep connectedness between nature and writing. But whilst literature, both poetry and prose, is its core concern, it also explores the narratives of other art forms - thereby presenting a rich and varied tapestry of engagement. This wider canvas varies from festival to festival and podcast to podcast, but can include; dramatic prose, the written scores of music, the visual language of art and the embodied narratives of dance, as they each respond to nature in their own individual yet universal ways. The aim is to offer different portals for people to enter into a deeper relationship with the world around them.

When I am among trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, daily.

Mary Oliver

A Sense of Place

The Shaking Bog, is ideally situated in County Wicklow and more specifically the Glencree Valley. It is an area known for both its natural beauty and as a source of creative inspiration and yet it is an area that has never before played host to any cultural events

The Shaking Bog Festival takes place at indoor and outdoor locations throughout the valley including; in fields and forests; on riverbanks and hillsides; in tents, churches and schools. Likewise, the podcast remains firmly rooted in the local landscape whilst reaching out to a wider vision of Irish landscape through a broad canvas of contributing artists.