SURVIVAL – IRISH STYLE
Wordsandphotos:JasperWinn
JaperWinn goes back to
nature on an Institute of
Permaculture and Nature
Awareness course
in Kerry, examining
everything from how to
fend for yourself to how
to forage.
Aebhric and the gang practicing tracking on the beach.
Bushcraushcraft babbabyy
y spspiririts and my feet were LL ocal mann Dessieessie, and Mathew, aa so perhppp erhaaps I shouldsho have rer ad the
both sinkingii and fof r the same neighi bouringi ff armer’s young son, both IPNA’s websitei more thoroughly. Iff IM
reason. I was standing on – of whom had done previous courses, had I’d have known that Aebhric had
more in, actually – a slab of authentic were taking advantage of the IPNA’s been an‘austere medic’ in the USArmy
South Kerry bog, barely protected from ‘come-back’policy to join us and hone Special Forces, responsible for surgery
the drizzle by the dripping boughs of their skills.The school was a simple, and extreme medicine whilst on covert
several hectares of mono-culture spruce wooden, door-less building with a camp operations.I imagined him as M.A.S.H’s
tree woodland.This was where I was kitchen in one corner, floor space if we Hawkeye, but doing surgery in a ditch
going to be spending four days on a didn’t want to sleep outside in tents or using a penknife and perhaps cracking
survival course. leaf shelters and a semi-circle of chairs fewer jokes.After the military he’d
There were three of us doing the around a whiteboard.“Lads, you have it spent many years studying wilderness
Institute of Permaculture and Nature easy,” pointed out Dessie.“For the winter skills based on native American Indian
Awareness back-to-back basics and course this wasn’t even built and we were traditions.
advanced bushcraft courses.Between us sitting on straw bales under a tarpaulin.” “What we’re doing here is bushcraft
Tom, Stephen and I could muster a fair Aebhric O’Kelly, our tutor, looked not survival,” he started out,“because
bit of world travel, some winter camping like he’d be as happy under a tarpaulin survival sucks, even if you do survive.”
experience in the Dublin mountains and, or a tree as a roof. Heavy woollen He went on to tell us that there were two
for one of us, time in the Foreign Legion. trousers and shirt, solid boots, a beard approaches to bushcraft;the military
But there was still an air of expectation and peaked cap weatherproofed him. style of using what you have with you, and
as we gathered in the classroom. Observation is a key part of bushcraft, the nature approach, where you strip off
44| June-July |OUTSIDER
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