Who knew that a donkey’s sneeze could lead to such an opportune moment?
Bear with me… 
(If you want to read later - images of the ink are at the bottom of this post)

At the end of the year a friend who took part in The Natural Dye Project I was running in Cork City gifted me the fabulous book Ireland’s Wild Plants: Myths, Legends and Folklore by Niall Mac Coitir. It has proved a valuable reference book and helpful for anyone wanting to become more familiar with our often overlooked wild flowers. 
One such is the Yellow Flag Iris, which caught my attention last year during the first Spring we had after moving to Elwith. 

Yellow Flag Iris, Iris pseudacorus or Feileastram in Irish, has a striking, sculptural form. It boasts sharp and broad leaves which inspired the Fleur-des-lys coat of arms with their sword-like points. In Rome, Iris was the Goddess of the Rainbow because the flower can come in so many colours, and in Ancient Egypt the petals of the flower symbolised valour, wisdom and faith. In Irish myths this stunning plant was used as a metaphor for beauty. 

We are very lucky that in the little valley our cottage guards the entrance to, it grows in swathes over small patches of boggy land. Behind us, this valley is short with steep dropping sides that cattle precariously graze on, with a narrow boreen (or single-laned country road) at the bottom. The rain water is gathered by the slopes into gargling streams on either side of the road, which quickly merge on one side and runs past the bottom of our garden. Then, it ducks under a small bridge and out into the body of a broad river. Twice a day this stream flows backward with briney water that comes up with the tide, moving past the waterfall that graces our view from the backdoor. The tides have become another rhythm to our days, changing by 50 mins each day. A perfect stillness lands at that moment of high tide, and I always try and catch it. The stream reaches it highest banks and transforms into a smooth placid mirror, and everything around seems to stop and pause, the water in us responding to the pause in the body of water it perceives.    

View from the Terrace, Elwith 2024.

The Yellow Flag Iris had taken my breath away when I saw them first, catching rays of sunshine through the remaining woodland trees. I think it was first in The Dúchas records that I’d first come across Yellow Flag Iris being worked with as a dye or ink, I can’t remember exactly. But Niall’s book was a welcome reminder. There were none growing in the boggy bits of our garden, and I wondered how I might approach a neighbour to inquire about sampling a small amount. Without knowing the neighbours yet, it would have to wait…
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So this year when chatting to a now befriended neighbour, he mentioned that he had been strimming these flowers in his field because one of his donkeys was allergic to their pollen. Poor Rosie! Well, I’d be happy to dig up a few and bring them home I said. So off I went with a wheelbarrow and down the boreen to gather a few. 
They are happily planted in the boggy area around the pond which fills up and down with the tide, and they’ve held and survived the tides - just.
Hopefully they'll spread like crazy - creating a bountiful harvest and increasing the native biodiversity in the area.
Link to short video on planting Yellow Flag Iris at Elwith: www.instagram.com/p/C4VubR9s1da/

The dye or pigment is obtained from the roots, chopped up and simmered in water for an hour. Like with any woody dye material I soaked them the night before to soften and get more pigment from them. The roots are a gorgeous peach/pink, which is likely from the high tannin content. All plants have tannins in them, as they work as antimicrobial agents to protect from damp loving pathogens. Plants growing in wet environments have particularly large amounts of tannins in their chemistry.

On a plant holiday with a friend I brought a little bottle with this ink, freshly made. The ink is a beautiful rich peach colour, and it was with great excitement that we mixed a pinch of ferrous sulphate (iron salt) in the liquid and stirred. Not being able to wait I started painting with it in my sketchbook straight away, and over those few minutes we saw the darkening ink turn charcoal, then a deep, deep almost purple black… Deep blacks are notoriously difficult to obtain in natural dyeing, and so this was a wonderful discovery! It rivals the depth of Oak Gall ink, can you believe! I need to do comparative studies to test how it compares with lightfastness. As an ink, its tonal range was really exciting to work with, beautifully washing across the page and easy to work with to achieve a full range. 

So, there will be a lot more experimenting and collaborating with this beautiful native Irish Wildflower. I am very grateful for our neighbouring donkey’s sneeze, and to be able to help spread this regal and generous Beauty and grow more in the area. Just hope Rosie gets a healthy dose of antihistamine … Maybe there is a natural plant source of this medicine she could tuck into?

Ashleigh Ellis is an eco social artist who has a natural dye practice. She teaches skills and know-how, and grows natural dye plants with communities, benefiting people, place, and pollinators.