River Bingo & Healthy Rivers: A Summer of Learning Across Inishowen

LEP Funded Community Workshops2025

This summer and autumn, Inishowen Rivers Trust delivered a series of fun, hands-on River Bingo workshops with schools and communities across the peninsula, supported by the Local Enhancement Programme 2025. From Culdaff to Clonmany, Quigleys Point, Gleneely and Buncrana to Desertegney, pupils, teachers, and local volunteers joined us to explore their local rivers and learn how to spot the signs of a healthy waterway.

Across October and early November, we visited St Boden’s NS (Culdaff), Clonmany Community Afterschool Program, Cloontagh NS, Scoil Mhuire Gleneely, Scoil Naomh Fionán Whitecastle, and St Egney’s NS Desertegney.

Each workshop followed the River Bingo approach, students heading outdoors, observing the river up close, and learning how insects are key indicators of water quality.

Thomas Lawrence from The Mill River Conservation Group, with help from Sally and Meabh helped the children to recognise insect types that were found in the river and explained what this indicates for the health of the river. Pupils discovered stonefly, mayfly and caddisfly species, explored river habitats, and even spotted a young trout at Whitecastle.

Meanwhile Micheala Gallagher (IRT) guided the students on what questions to ask in order to determine the health of the river. Each question resulted in either a thumbs up, neutral or thumbs down. These results were transferred to the bingo board, in the hope of getting a bingo of thumbs up emoji’s. There was such great excitement when the students recorded a healthy river with a river bingo.

Highlights of the programe was at Quigleys point when the students discovered the results of Thomas’s river sample, which included a young trout. A fantastic indicator for the river.

One of the best parts of the workshops was seeing how engaged the students were. They were genuinely interested in the rivers, full of questions, and really keen to learn. Their curiosity and excitement gave us a lot of hope, it’s great to see young people caring so much about their local environment and wanting to look after it.

The programme also included two community workshops for adults, Healthy Rivers, Healthy Communities which was held at St Mary’s Hall, Burt and The Plaza, Buncrana.

These adult events were also facilitated by Thomas Lawrence, who guided participants through the role of river insects, water quality indicators, and practical actions to protect and restore local waterways. Both sessions created a welcoming space for people to learn, ask questions and share ideas about protecting their local rivers.

A big thank you to all pupils, teachers, community members and volunteers who took part, and to Micheala, Thomas, Sally and Méabh for sharing their expertise throughout the events.