UCC to rename building in honour of Ireland's first female botanist

Madeline Hutchins, Ellen's great-great grandniece and the organiser of Bantry's annual Ellen Hutchins Festival.

A Cork woman widely regarded as Ireland's first female botanist is to have a building at University College Cork renamed in her honour.

During her short but distinguished career, Ellen Hutchins, a native of Ballylickey in West Cork, conducted a vast amount of research on cryptograms — non-flowering plants such as seaweeds, lichens, mosses, and liverworts.

Between 1805 and 1812, she compiled an extensive list of more than a thousand plants along the shores of Bantry Bay in what became one of the first proper accounts of West Cork's flora. She also produced hundreds of exquisitely detailed watercolour drawings of the seaweeds and plants she studied.

Ellen Hutchins' illustrations of the flora she studied in Bantry Bay. Photo: UCC About Ellen Hutchins: Though her time as a botanist spanned just eight years before her untimely death in 1815 at the age of just 29, Ellen Hutchins has ten different plants named in her honour.

During this time, she found at least 20 species that were either new to science or new to Ireland, making a significant contribution to the understanding of non-flowering plants and garnering the respect of botanists at home and abroad.

Legacy

Though she died in 1815 at the age of just 29, Ellen Hutchins left behind a lasting legacy.

No less than 10 plants, including three species of liverwort and one type of moss, have been named after her, and several of her specimens, drawings, and notes are held in libraries and herbaria in Ireland, the UK, and the USA.

Now, UCC has announced that the Environmental Research Institute (ERI) building on the Lee Road is to be officially renamed in honour of the woman known as 'the Botanist of Bantry Bay.'

The University has also announced the opening of the new Ellen Hutchins Reading Room at the ERI, which will contain archival material, a number of the seaweed specimens catalogued by Ms Hutchins during her career, as well as books, letters and one of her botanical drawings.

Naming ceremony

The official naming ceremony will take place this afternoon and will feature a contribution from Madeline Hutchins, Ellen's great-great grandniece and the organiser of Bantry's annual Ellen Hutchins Festival.

Madeline Hutchins said she was "immensely proud" of UCC's tribute to her great-great grandaunt.

Madeline Hutchins: 'I hope that UCC students and staff will be encouraged by Ellen's life and her love of nature.'

“The challenges she faced in overcoming illness and balancing caring responsibilities with her own interest in botany, span the centuries and are just as relevant today as they were at the time.

“I hope that UCC students and staff will be encouraged by Ellen's life and her love of nature, and strive to protect our environment for future generations,” she said.

“We are delighted to make this announcement, and to give Ellen Hutchins the recognition her pioneering work so richly deserves," said UCC President Professor John O'Halloran.

"Her spirit of inquisitiveness and love for her natural environment inspires us all."