The garden the whole Lab grows from.
An intergenerational, wheelchair-accessible community garden and registered charity by Lough Corrib. A real place where pattern, rhythm and the seasons can be felt through the body, and where the science of the Living Lab is enacted in the soil. Open to all, without membership.
Nature-based creative participation for non-speaking autistic children, whose voice lives in action, repetition, movement, choice and return. Most creative frameworks rely on speech, and so these children are left out. This work meets them in their own capacity, to read the world through pattern.
Children are already reading the world through pattern: noticing regularity, recognising symmetry, following sequence. The patterns held in nature match how they attend, through deep sensory focus rather than scattered attention.
They encode understanding through arrangement, return, repetition and spatial choice. A child who extends a line of stones the next session has said something. Pattern is the language. The body is the medium.
Without witnessing, expression disappears. Ethical listening makes sure what a child communicates is documented, taken seriously, and shapes what happens next. Encoding becomes voice. Witnessing becomes audience. Response becomes influence.
The same curve builds a shell, a fern, a galaxy.
Every leaf, wing and face carries a hidden axis of balance.
The earth breathes in seasons. So does a child who feels safe to return.
Tairseach na Réaltaí. Looking up together, finding pattern in the night.
When emotional needs go unmet, imagination can spiral into anxiety. Pattern engagement redirects it: rhythmic, predictable, sensory input that grounds the nervous system. A child who works with spirals, symmetry and seasonal rhythm is not only creating. They are self-regulating. And that self-regulation is agency, not compliance.
A willow enclosure and sensory-safe gardens, co-designed with an occupational therapist. The right to leave, and to return.
Ethical listening: arrangement, return, repetition and pause, all read as communication.
A neurodivergent artist, the OT's observation, the star cards and the night-sky sessions.
Children's patterns shape the sessions. Their choices carry real consequence.
ATU (Dr Yvonne Lang, lead)
Gairdín DANÚ (Dr Etain Kiely)
This Is Me Initiative, Donegal
Emma Donoghue, artist
Andrea, occupational therapist
Amicitia, evaluation partner
Lundy Model for children's voice
CreaTures Evaluation Framework
Human Givens (emotional needs)
A co-built willow sensory enclosure
An open-access practitioner resource
Cross-site reflective learning
Nature-based sessions for children, families, schools and the wider community. All are welcome, and most are free or by donation.
The My World in Patterns sessions: spirals, stones, shells and the willow enclosure, guided by the artist and the OT, at the child's own pace.
Help weave and extend the living willow enclosure, the garden's sensory-safe heart, alongside the Men's Shed and the community.
Draw the protected species of Lough Corrib with a wildlife artist, and add to the community gallery and biodiversity trail.
Follow a real frog clutch from spawn to froglet, count and measure, and send your records to the national Hop To It survey.
Night-sky sessions at the gateway of stars: learning the constellations and using a telescope with your own eyes.
Bookable visits to the garden, the pond and the greenhouse, tied to the studies and the live data of the Lab.
These are the programmes that run at DANÚ. Confirmed dates and booking will be added here. To register interest or ask about a date, email etain.kiely@atu.ie.
Register your interest →However you arrive, as a child, a family, a school, a volunteer or a fellow grower, there is a way in.
Watch the pond, the ash and the garden change over time in the evidence reels.
Evidence reels →Photograph a wild thing and earn a Biodiversity Hero card from Mother Nature.
Badge Lab →Copy the template and bring your school or garden into the network.
Start a site →