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INTRODUCTION

The recent publication of startling statistics about the detrimental effect humankind is having on the flora and fauna of our planet has been a serious ‘wake-up’ call to all. The danger to the earth posed by human activities has been known for decades. In his introduction to Far from Paradise: The Story of Man’s Impact on the Environment, published as long ago as 1986, John Seymour wrote:

the purpose of this book … is to decide not what is ethical about mankind’s treatment of other forms of life but whether, as an increasing number of our people are beginning to believe, mankind’s present exploitation of his planet is unsustainable. Can we continue to live as we are living, and work as we are working, for more than a limited number of generations?

Scientific data assembled over recent decades provides solid evidence that we cannot.

At one time all humanity lived in intimate contact with the natural world, and aspects of nature were central themes in art and literature: from the Old Testament’s Song of Solomon onwards through Greek and Roman literature, nature is frequently celebrated; Shakespeare was sufficiently in touch with his natural surroundings that his writings mention more than fifty bird species by name. In Ireland we had no industrial revolution, and so the majority of our population remained in touch with ‘the land’ well into the twentieth century. A creeping but inexorable change, however, occurred over the last half-century in the relationship between ourselves, particularly the increasing number of us who live in cities, and the natural world, with which we used to live in close harmony. Our ability to remain in touch with and be a part of nature as it weaves its strong, magic, cyclical spells has radically declined. Spending much of our time in the comfortable, artificial micro-climates of houses, cars or workplaces, our experience of the outside world is less and less an essential part our lives.

If we as individuals wish to have any impact in redressing the damage our civilisation has done, we must begin by reconnecting with nature. Those who do reach out to the natural world will find that many new and long-forgotten gifts await them; as the naturalist John Burroughs put it, ‘We always have nature with us, and it is an inexhaustible storehouse of wonderments that move the heart, appeal to the mind, and fire the imagination; active observance of it provides health and joy and stimulus to the intellect from childhood to old age.’

Two thousand years ago, the Roman writer and naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote of the destructive power of nature, but added, ‘Earth, however, is kind, gentle, indulgent, always a servant to man’s needs, productive when compelled to be, or lavish of her own accord. What scents and tastes, what juices, what things to touch, what colours!’

Nature’s beauty, to be found in the skies, in the landscape, and in its rich and varied flora and fauna, is always changing, by the hour, from morning to evening, from season to season. You don’t have to travel to Central America or Africa, helping to fill the stratosphere with pollutants, to experience it. The extraordinary and the exotic in nature can be found, for those who look carefully, even in our backyards. For those who cannot get away to the Galapagos, Antarctica or Borneo, there are many hidden riches of the natural world to be discovered in our immediate surroundings, but only if we consciously slow down and open our eyes.

Myself and my wife, Teresa, are fortunate enough to share an interest in the natural world, onto which we have two windows: our south Dublin suburban home, and our country cottage in County Waterford. Each of these places, through their gardens, nearby hillsides, parks and seashores, delight us, raise our spirits, soothe and heal, and provide a reassuring solidity to our lives. We are not naturalists. We just enjoy nature and are curious about it, and have come to realise that the more one looks, the more one sees. I wrote this book, woven around entries in my journal, to attempt to share some of the stress- relieving pleasure Teresa and I get from observations and explorations of our natural world over a twelve- month period.

Although we live in an ordinary semi-detached house in suburban Dublin, we have three good nature habitats nearby. We overlook, from our back windows, a half-acre field, beyond which, eighty metres away, is a small wood of mature beech trees; what we like to call ‘the Spinney’. The trees in the Spinney were probably planted by Seán Keating, the painter (1889–1977), who built a house for himself and his family there in 1935, on the site of an old water mill. Eighty metres to the south-east of our house are the remains of Sir Frederick Moore’s gardens at Willbrook House. Moore (1857–1949) was the curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin for forty years, after which he spent a long retirement with his wife Phyllis in Willbrook House, lovingly tending their gardens, which were renowned for their trees, shrubs and plants. After he died, she continued with this work until her death in 1976. The property has been in private ownership since then, and what remains of the gardens are extant. To the west of our home, deep in a tree-shrouded ravine, is the Owendoher River, a mountain stream which flows off the northern slopes of Cruagh Mountain, providing a hidden, linear nature reserve. Our surroundings are not unique, however: there are few suburban areas that do not have similar ‘green’ areas nearby, such as urban parks, old gardens, leftover parcels of land, railway cuttings and old churchyards.

Glendoher today

Kilcop Cottage today

The nearby foothills of the Dublin Mountains provide a wilderness ‘annex’ to our home. Over the years Ticknock and Hellfire Hill, ten to fifteen minutes away by car, have become much-loved resorts for our outings to the semi-wild, and they have provided us with enormous pleasure over the years.

In the late 1970s Teresa and I bought an acre field in County Waterford, close to Waterford Harbour. We built a tiny cottage on it, and it became a great hideaway from Dublin urban life. Nearby, at Woodstown, there is a long cockleshell-strewn beach, a place that is deeply engrained in my family mythology, and which, somehow, has avoided the kind of developments that have spoiled other popular seaside places. Also close by is the fishing village of Dunmore East, where we could enjoy swimming, coastal exploration and mackerel fishing in summertime. At the time we built our cottage, there was only one house, a 200-year-old farmhouse, nearby. Since then, the surrounding area has seen the erection of nine homes, but there are still plenty of fields, fox coverts and woods close by.

Observations of ‘ordinary’ nature from our Dublin and Waterford homes, through a typical year, are offered here in the hope that they will inspire curiosity about that fascinating wild world that lives quietly in parallel with our twenty-first century digital, mechanised world, and provide a sure source of tranquillity to sooth our sometimes frenetic lifestyles.