Posted online: Feb 8th, 2010

A local landmark is set to go boldly go where no place has gone before when a new project names a physical feature on Mars after a part of Donegal.
Donegal County Council has teamed up with a team of leading scientists to twin a part of Donegal with part of the Red Planet. The ‘Lovely Weather’ project will take place throughout Donegal in 2010, with the Los Angeles-based League of Imaginary Scientists working in the Letterkenny/Milford Electoral Area.
The team is working on a major art and climate change project and are eager to get local people involved in suggestion local landmarks. To begin their project, the group wish to name a physical feature on Mars after a geographic feature in the area on either an island or at sea – a place such as a peninsula, island, beach, jetty, etc.
The Irish Rover: Looking for Mars Off the Northern Coast of Ireland project focuses on and takes its inspiration from the legendary voyage of ‘The Irish Rover’ and the current work being carried out by NASA on Mars. The idea is to develop a scientific expedition along the Fanad/Swilly peninsula’s that will mirror the work currently being undertaken on Mars.
The team will look at the impact of climate change on Donegal and will make comparisons between the climate on Mars.
“If we truly want to understand climate change, we have to realise how it works in local environments like Donegal,” says John Cunningham, one of the project co-coordinators.
“Art could help us to question our perceptions and relationships to weather, climate and help us to experience and reveal our inner participation with weather and climate; the rupture of their balance and its meaning for our world. The ‘Lovely Weather’ projects, which are currently being developed, will access ongoing scientific studies alongside generations of local knowledge and are important mechanisms for progressive understanding of the impact of climate change on Donegal.”