Chair’s report 2025-26
We were very active throughout the year. We organised and shepherded our usual ten public walks on Cave Hill, mainly on Saturdays from April to October.
As part of our extra walks programme, we hosted a number of other walks:
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three walks for BHSCT for their carers in June, July and August.
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Siúlóid Mhic Reachtain - a walk on Cave Hill by the McCracken Irish Summer School in July.
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a walk for RNIB in July
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a Volunteer Now litter lift in September
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A litter lift by ImageNation – a local Indian organisation in October
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A guided walk in Irish for a local GAA club this month
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Siúlóid Chonradh na Gaeilge - A guided walk in Irish for the Gaelic League this month
As part of a broader outreach programme we had a presence at a number of other occasions:
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a stall at the Volunteer Now event for older people in late March
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a stall at the two-day BCC annual Spring Fair in April
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a stall at the BCC Big Lunch event at the Castle in June
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a stall at the Cavehill Road street family event in September
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a stall at the Men’s Health Day in St Comgall’s in October
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a stall at the Women’s Health Day in St Comgall’s in October
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we attended a City Hall event for older volunteers in December
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a stall at the annual Ballynature fair in Ballynure in February
I also delivered an illustrated talk on Cave Hill to the RGS in QUB in February
We were part of a celebration by the BHP of its twentieth anniversary in Belfast Castle in October.
We are also part of a broader coalition, along with Ligoniel Improvement Association and the National Trust which organises four seasonal walks across the Belfast Hills, linked to the four ancient Celtic festivals. We are responsible for the section from Belfast Castle to Ligoniel and that involves leading and shepherding a group averaging about 15 people each time.
Our volunteer program is expanding. We can have up to 20 volunteers at each work party. Volunteers meet once a month April – October and twice a month during the winter – a total of 18 times. There is always work to be done managing the Maze and the Herb Garden as well as tackling the invasive laurel in the area of the Volunteers’ Well. Among our volunteers are three secondary school pupils doing the service section of their Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme. Most of our board have contributed to this
programme but I do want to single out one in particular - Gerard Brannigan – who manages all the work being carried out in the Maze and who is often found there outside of volunteering occasions, carrying out work on his own.
We enjoyed again what is becoming an annual Christmas dinner in the Castle in December.
We consulted a young person with considerable social media skills about our use of this resource; they found our approach dull and uninspiring and out of touch with younger generations. So discussions are ongoing to address this problem and I hope that our social media profile will improve in the near future.
I announced last year that I had begun a process of disentanglement of my responsibilities within CCC as a way of future-proofing the organisation and spreading the tasks and responsibilities necessary to make a group such as ours function smoothly. I succeeded in shucking some of them but I have some way to go. I found it a surprisingly diaicult process and finishing it may take some time.
We are currently preparing the twenty-ninth annual magazine, the Cave Hill Campaigner. It is a tribute to the great work done by its joint editors, Martine and Martin as well as to those who supply the articles. It was redesigned two years ago and I think it looks very well and reflects very well on us as a group.
I want to thank Mark Turner the Outreach Manager(North) and his deputy Jenny Fawcett. They are regular attenders both at our meetings and most of our events and they are very good at easing the bureaucracy attendant on dealing with any large organisation such as BCC. And through them I want to thank BCC as a whole. We are recognised as a Friends Group by BCC and that brings a small annual grant of £300 as well as the use of the Castle for our meetings. I want to thank our current seventeen directors for their active help and support and the body of volunteers who are leaving a very visual mark on the Castle estate. Finally I want to thank our 120 or so members who pay their annual subscriptions and supply our core funding.
Cormac E Hamill
11 March 2026