A quick note – the language used in this piece (ie “Autistic person”) is identity-first, as is the preference of the group we worked with. Some groups prefer to use person-first language (ie “person with autism”). Read more about this topic here.
St Patrick’s Day was extra special for us this year as it saw a project very close to our hearts come to fruition. If you were at the Dungarvan parade, you may have seen a very colourful garden themed float – and even if you weren’t, you might have seen us sharing pictures of it on our social media.
Now that the dust has settled, we’d like to share more about the story of how this float came to be, and the many hands that were involved in its creation.
Introductions
On a very ordinary day in September, an extraordinary email arrived in our inbox from our friends in Waterford Area Partnership. Waterford Area Partnership had been supporting a group called Autism Support Dungarvan, and this group had a goal to make a float for St Patrick’s Day 2025. They were looking for support and guidance on how they might go about this.
We organised a meeting to find out more and were completely blown away by the enthusiasm of this group. As parents of Autistic children, they were determined that their families should be represented in the parade in a joyful and powerful way – especially as many children with sensory issues cannot attend parades. This wish was particularly poignant as Dungarvan is currently in the process of becoming an Autism Friendly Town – you can read more about that bid here.
After this meeting, we were determined to support Autism Support Dungarvan with their goal – but we knew we couldn’t do it alone. While we could provide the funding for the project, we also needed someone on the ground who knows parades and street spectacle inside and out – and who better to call than Spraoi? We arranged for ourselves, Spraoi and Autism Support Dungarvan to meet for a cup of tea and a chat one rainy Friday morning and all we can say is it all grew legs!
Starting to Dream
Before the tea was even cold, we’d come up with a concept together of how we could represent this often-overlooked community in a parade float. The images of a buzzing hive kept coming up in conversation, representing the busy community of young people and their families all working together for a common goal – to create a more inclusive Dungarvan. The image of a rich garden of flowers at different stages of bloom also kept coming up – representing the uniqueness of every neurodivergent person, and how each person will bloom in their own time. We knew that we needed to create an explosion of colour to bring this powerful natural image to life.
We came up with a rough plan of how we would all work together to create this float – and some other groups and individuals that might be interested in joining our mission. We wanted to create an end-product that was both community-led and of professional standard – a tricky balance, but we believed that if we all pooled our skill sets we could pull it off.
Next Steps
With the clock ticking to the festivities, we had to get to work fast. Spraoi enlisted Ruth Flynn as the lead artist for this project – which we were delighted about. We’d worked with Ruth before on our Family Resource Centre artist in residence project, and we knew her depth of experience in community arts.
Autism Support Dungarvan introduced us to another group – White Strand Foróige, a youth club for neurodivergent teenagers. Ruth set up shop with White Strand during their Thursday evening meetings and set the teens and their parents to work making colourful foam flowers that would cover every inch of the float. They rose to the challenge admirably – weeks and weeks went into handmaking each foam flower and no two were the same.
Ruth also set up workshops in the fantastic Hive Education for the younger children. The children coloured, drew, and fingerpainted original creations, which were then turned into colourful laminated bunting that would be wrapped around the float.
A brainstorming session led by Autism Support Dungarvan led to a variety of words that represent the Autistic community – powerful words like resilient, inclusive, and unique. These were printed out in huge letters to form the honeycomb on our “hive” – to be read by everyone watching the parade.
Now, here’s where things got a little bit complicated – we weren’t able to assemble the float until St Patrick’s day itself! The frame for the float was transported to Dungarvan in advance, but because it was stored outdoors the artwork couldn’t be installed until 8am on St Patrick’s Day morning. This meant all hands on deck – as representatives from all organisations scrambled around with cable ties and managed to get everything together just in time before celebrating with some delicious homemade flapjacks.
The final piece was affixing a speaker to the float that would play soothing nature sounds as we walked with it – offering spectators an oasis of peace and calm in the middle of a bustling parade.
It truly was a community effort, even down to the final “push” – we were joined by Dungarvan rugby club, who helped us to physically push the float around the parade route with ease.
Watching the reactions of children who came up to proudly point out their artistic contribution to the float, and families getting emotional as they saw themselves represented in the parade through the float made for a truly special memory. It was poignant for all the collaborators to walk the route together and know that we made something together that visually represents our common aim – that Dungarvan would be a place that welcomes and celebrates everyone.
We arrived home after taking the float apart absolutely exhausted, but completely delighted at a job well done and genuine friendships formed. We even got to go back the following Thursday for an extra cup of tea and a slice of cake! All projects are special, but this is one we will never forget.
