Roisin Markham

These are my notes from the week that’s just been, I write them without AI as a way to navigate 2025 and so I may get better at writing. If I outsource my practices of thinking and or writing how will my brain exercise itself? Our brains are a muscle, in using it I build new neural pathways and avoid smooth brain theory. Mostly here my premise is to get better at writing and more importantly editing. Yes I could use AI, these thoughtfully constructed weekly notes might be more polished, refined, maybe even easier to read but what will I have lost in that automated process?
My weekly notes are structured as reflection, insights, a question for you, resources and a view to next week. I’m finding I want a looser structure that’s more fluid in part because I am sensing into and enjoying a more storytelling format. I wonder would a video format work better?
Having change management experience I know

1. create a structure
2. work with it for a while
3. gain consistency
4. work with it more
5. decide if you really need to change anything and why, to what end
6. if you make changes you have to stay with them for 2-6 weeks depending on size and scale, you can call them iterations they maybe improvement or distractions
7. repeat steps 1-6 etc, etc, etc

Lived expertise has a lot of hard earned lessons.

Last week seems a bit of a blur and this is what it looked like; mixed time off and time on unsuccessfully, rejection – tenders, submissions, jobs, volunteering that became work, hanging out with loved ones and friends, an eco cabin joy in Kerry, being in County Kerry, swimming while being captivated by mountains, old memories, good food, home, drawing my first Soarlíníocht wall mural, combining at least 6 topics into a compressed worksheet, working a Sunday because I wanted to not work Thursday, managing clients not understanding I was trying to take 2 days holidays. It was the week of Kneecap at Glastonbury, the shocking news that Spotify CEO, Daniel Ek, became the Chairman of AI military startup after a $600 million investment, the publishing of the first Irish Just Commision Report.

Reflection

When you need two weeks preparation for a really excellent day Workshop and the budget is for a half day, what do you do?
I foolishly take the work and end up working five days to prepare a stonking workshop because that’s how I roll. I hate crap work and crap workshops that are performative and don’t move the needle.

That decision is kicking my ass right about now. In reality if the price for a workshop facilitation does not include properly paid preparation it means you are working for much less. The same goes for the post event reporting, if it’s not budgeted for and not included in the negotiations facilitators end up doing the work and funding it. It is unsustainable. I am perplexed. I am stressing.

Last week I found myself traveling west to participate in the Well Being Economy Alliance Ireland Hub, Listening to the Oran Mor as part of the Blas International Summer School of Irish Traditional Music and Dance in University of Limerick. The WEALL Ireland Hub has a Creativity community of practice and the were involved in this rather magical lovely day.

I was delighted that we could organise for a visiting indigenous leader Emma Rawson-Te Patu to join us. Emma came to be among us representing her first peoples of Aotearoa and as the President World Federation of Public Health Associations Policy and Advocacy Portfolio, Indigenous Working Group (WFPHA).

Does anyone else go into automatic Bord Failte overdrive when you know an international visitor is coming to our shores and might have some time to enjoy all our land has to offer?

Tuesday I spent with mostly with strangers, initially I was going to support and attend but I ended up convening the whole day – I know how did that happen! Everyone seemed very stressed about two people who normally do that work not being there, it just seemed an easy solution. I did not over think it a graciously stepped up to hold space and time for about 100 – 60 people over the course of the day.

A wonderful blend of song, music, story, film, process and creative craft. Everyone had so much to contribute. It was such an honour to be there.

It was balanced the rest of the week with gratitude and a fair dose of rejection. I did not get that Bunclody Placemaking Submission to Wexford County Council and got rejection responses for 3 other things. But with one invitation to a continued process so let’s see where that goes.

Over the past two weeks there have been discussions of values and talk of our land, Ireland. It reminded me in 2020 that I did some personal and creative enquiry about values and Ireland 3.0 as I thought about it then. I was trying to explore my own values to. It seems so naive to think Covid was the rumble to not go back to normal!

My values wishlist for Society 3.0

Insight

I found myself skipping down memory lane in more ways than one the last week. I discovered a LinkedIn conversation from 2020 where I quote “the future of work consists of learning a living” by Louise Watts from Australian B-Corp HPC Global, High Performance Coaching Global.

This seems more meaningful than ever in the age of LLM and predictive analytics masquerading as AI.

If you read last weeks studio notes I mentioned

HOW
TO
SAVE
€26BN

Roisin Markham

I see those who I have been speaking to and heard me speaking about it starting to use it. Now I have a quandary which would you chose:

Option 1: work on a €26BN Irish problem or

Option 2: work on a €132BN EU potentially larger global problem…

Musicians are an amazing bunch of artists, often self employed and working in a variety of ways to fill the world with music, song and resonance. I can’t help thinking what if I could combine the IRDG Amplify Innovation Conference with a mix from WEALL Creative CoP, Listening to the Oran Mor. What kind of a world would we dream into reality then?

Rather then over use words here are some of my notes from Listening to the Orán Mór.

One of the beauties was experiencing what sound means to sonic artists they are kind of a liminal space between art technology and science combining deep understanding of birds, gurgling bogs and creative poetic mythic responses back to the land or for us to hear.

Hive Choir was a beautiful enrapturing. I’m looking forward to discovering more of their work on waterways, story, song and creative action. Definitely want to explore a deeper understanding of how they make art, combine interventions with creative expression and activism. So much of their work resonated with me. Their harmonies over recorded images and song reminded me of artist Deirdre O’Mahoney The Quickening, the libretto created to accompany the films which my body has a visceral hunger to hear again. I am including it here as to bury it in resources seemed to break the flow here. This is art that is shaping our cultural lexicon and responding to challenging our times.

In the afternoon there was a concert, Emma spoke and after the musicians spoke about their connection to the land, process and what music was to them:

John Spillane sang The dawn chorus

I was struck by how Liam O Maonlaí spoke with great affection about his father and how he had bestowed the seed of music in him. How Cáit Ní Riain spoke about her home as a household of music, where people would come and sing and play, welcomed in. She spoke about the household being in decline, this links so strongly to the deeper understanding of economics as being from the household and an embedded economy.

Nóirin Ní Riain, who I knew nothing about previously, spoke with such deep intellect, played several instruments and sang in a specific traditional Irish way. I am grateful to her for naming Sinead O’Connor. She spoke of deep theological meaning and there were conversations that I did not grasp or fully follow about The Amergine Step by Paddy Bushe. The connection between I AM and OM, John the Baptise, Solstice and the Celtic wheel.

Dónal Ó Céilleachair, Ánu Pictures shared several of his films throughout the day including The Song of Amergin (2016), inspired by John Moriarty’s iconic 2005 book INVOKING IRELAND (Áiliu Iath n-hÉrend), this film brings the legendary Poems, or Songs, of Amergin*  to life for contemporary audiences, and the one I have been involved in Seeding the Future. He also hosted the artist panel after the concert.

Bravo to the whole team who organised the event and worked tirelessly on it to bring it to fruition.

Something happened on the 24th of June 2025, as I listened transported to a different place sometimes with joy, wonder, laughter and other times transfixed on clear crystal voices some harmonising like The Hive from Belfast and others a lone female voice playing by piano holding a room still in enchantment. As I said there was good heart medicine in the room.

Dr Mathew Noone, UL talked about the germination of the idea for Listening from the Orán Mór from the second deep dive of the WEALL CREATIVE CoP. the same one the Dónals film came out of and my deeper entanglement with networks of creatives. He also talked about including dance into the program for next year. I think it will be rather extraordinary next year also.

In reflecting and thinking about art and creativity, stories of Ireland, of culture of self expression I am acutely aware of my own creative work and enquiries. As a designer, business leader and cultural thinker and also of someone rediscovering dance, new to singing and music making. I have also slowly been reclaiming blogging, writing, drawing, making as an act of claiming my own voice.

But I am still asking question… this post from July last year on rethinking values and the shaping of Irish society. It’s a good grounding of broader thinking and information across the wellbeing economic spectrum of ideas and research lying around.

Moving questions, rethinking values

This week I had the rare encouragement to draw a whole wall in my style of which I call saorlíníocht, it’s the ghealige for freeline. What began as doodling, a daily practice I took on board to rewind my mind and find more flow has developed into a very specific drawing style. During Covid I went looking for an Irish language word for doodle, it was suggested freeline ~ freehand might be close. I thought it was good enough, I love the word soar as ghealige. My heart moves to the shape of it as it travels from my mind to my mouth.

This is some of what I drew for the mural. The top section is not complete.

Last week I also finished a daily drawing practice notebook. Unusually several of the drawings had writing in them. In June 2023 I was exploring colour as part of my daily drawing practice, last year just black ink on white paper.

I used to share it my drawing regularly on Instagram but stopped. I do want to share a video on the latest notebook I’ve finished – short form video but published to where? What platform and to what ends? To document it, sure is n’t the notebook sitting here beside me on my desk.

Interestingly it’s about a year from the Rethinking Growth Conference and this intriguing artefact from June 27 2024 a session by Peter Durand on sound and somatic learning.

A question for you?

When was the last time you listened to live music? When was the last time it transported you?

Resources

Ireland’s Just Transition Committee first Report, download and read here https://justtransitioncommission.ie/

John Spillane is playing in Wexford at the Fleadh Ceoilh go see him!

Rethinking Growth Conference TCD 2024

Jennifer Keanes PayGap website Gender Pay Gap reporting portal.

Ecological acclimation: A framework to integrate fast and slow responses to climate change

I’m really interested in accessing and supporting better communication around climate especially where it can influence behaviours and a move towards a just transition and low carbon futures. I saw a few things this week which I’ve not had the chance to explore yet. I’m contemplating an imperfect box in which to push and pull information through to ensure dynamic behavioural change and better communication. Like stop talking bout climate induced heatwaves that may cause deaths as if they were beach days.

Fire in the Belly, Tyson Yunkaporta, Emergency Magazine Read Spotify Listen Probing the way we overthink and underfeel our existence, Aboriginal scholar Tyson Yunkaporta urges us to attend to a vital intelligence beyond the cerebral: the fire in our gut.

I’ve come across all sorts of batteries – rust, sand, salt. I’ll try to compile those resources and share them shortly.

Humour feels like an important part of the process that is often missing, I’m enjoying The Onion on blue sky but missing Waterford Whispers.

A view to the week ahead

I’m already stuck into designing worksheets that combine 5 different exercises and condense some thinking, so looking forward to the Future Visioning Workshop Thursday.

Tuesday busy with prep for 2 clients, my cars NCT and prep for Wednesday close of co-design, a follow on potential, and full on all day session Thursday.

Oh there is also an IDEN virtual cuppa catchup thrown in there in the mix with some decisions to be made on taking the doughnut to Electric Picnic 2025 and some other events over the next few months.

I won’t make the second meeting of concerned people focused on Our Lady’s Ireland, if you are in Wexford and want to show support it’s on at 7:30 in the community hall, beside the car park opposite the church.

So this post is about a days lag behind, we’re there other things to say to share, maybe but for now we are complete.

Have a great week!