Writer | Podcasts | Environment
It’s been two years since this podcast first launched, and I began then with an overview of where Ireland stood in regards in the environment. It’s also budget week, which means the government has made certain statements that imply what the financial priorities for the next year will be. I spoke about how you can …
February is not a warming month, and Ireland went ten days this month without sunshine. All the same it’s the beginning of spring. In the lanes I started to see ewes lambing. The pond is filling up with frogspawn. There’s early veg and seeds to plant. I could start to dig again. Anyone following my …
La féile Bríde shona daoibh! (A day late as we're still in post storm signal days and so Happy World Wetlands Day too) I live far more seasonally than a city girl has a right to really, sinking into family in December, and then into rest and contemplation in January. It can easily turn into …
For something that dominates a few days of news cycle every year, the national budget is not particularly well understood. Media coverage tends towards giving headline updates from the governing parties press releases, which can sometimes be misleading. The document I’m primarily referencing in this episode is the expenditure report, which breaks down funding ceilings …
Continue reading "Environmental Sign-Posts for the 34th Dáil (Episode 10)"
“Sheer three-dimensionality is perhaps the most arresting aspect of an Irish rainforest, as though a living ecosystem had contrived to pack the maximum quantity of spatial strata into the smallest volume possible and succeeded to the wildest degree.” -The Magic of an Irish Rainforest by Eoghan Daltun The Glen of the Downs is an oak-woodland …
“If a pet day arrives in winter, shall I bask in the stillness and warmth and the sun’s enamelling with the same, almost pagan, gratitude, or shall I feel ‘well that’s fine, but it isn’t nature?’” - Nature Undone and the End of Love, Michael Viney The Convention on Biological Diversity described invasive alien species …
Each pore fights the river cold. Bones stiffen, locking my limbs. Feet on stones feel for ridges and ribs. A slide-shift to the one bit of sand And hurrah for me, I can stand! Hello, says the slow but steady flow. Hello I say, wary now, Knowing how it fills the fields, Leaves a layered …
Continue reading "Flooding and River Management (Episode 4)"
A hiding mane of a green-barked yew supports the sky; beautiful spot! the large green of an oak fronting the storm. A tree of apples - great its bounty! Like a hostel, vast: A pretty bush, thick as a fist, of tiny hazelnuts, a green mass of branches. A choice pure spring and princely water …
Continue reading "A Brief History of the Irish Environment (Episode 2)"
Celebrate saving the less charismatic Write odes to plankton, snail and flies, Our love of birds and mammals may be automatic, But we struggle to value lichen in our lives. It's harder to sing of fungi than of tigers, Hard to remember the worm in the earth, Diversity means algae as much as flowers So …
Ireland occasionally trips over its relationship with its own heritage. In the same week that Donald Trump declared March, Irish-American Heritage Month, to the discomfort of many, Irish minister for 'Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs', Heather Humphreys proposed a bill being known as the 'Heritage Bill' which contains provisions thought to actively harm the Irish …
Orla ní Dhúill 