Now indoors with the door and windows wide open, I can still feel a gentle sea breeze brushing against my face and arms and circulating my little home here. My feet are bare, toes touching the ground and heels resting against the legs of the chair. All is well in this moment, this perfect moment of awareness, appreciation, and of living life fully. I love the simplicity of soaking it all in, this intentional taking in the good and savouring it. I take time to feel my body against all the surfaces, the ground, the chair, my elbows on the table or armrest, fingers touching the keyboard, and I repeatedly sense into the moment, almost exaggerating this momentary awareness of being present in this body, with no pressure, nothing to do, nowhere to go. Resting in the embrace of nature and this amazing natural world.  

And maybe because this dry, calm, sunny weather has been so rare this year, it seems extra precious and, I’m sure like most people, I want it to stay. We naturally want these good times to last, however, by the time it took me to move indoors, because the sun was cooling, I had received news of the deaths of two people I knew. A stark reminder that life is so unpredictable and can change in the blink of an eye. All the more reason for us to value our lives and the people and places we hold dear.  I pause and intentionally think of these affected families and a feeling inside of me stirs. Their grief resonates with me, and I feel deep discomfort and a sense of deep compassion for them.  

Compassion-based mindfulness encourages qualities like empathy, inclusion, solidarity and having the ability, as well as making the choice, to step into someone else’s shoes and offer compassion.

But while we can make choices every moment of our lives about how we live them, we really have no control over events that happen every day. So, there is something about noticing and relishing the good moments while accepting their impermanent nature and being able to sit with and accept the difficult moments too, instead of resisting them. Having the knowledge that a day going so smoothly and perfectly can be instantly interrupted can help us to be very grateful for those moments in the sun and our leisure time, simply because nothing stays the same for too long.  

Nature can be so reassuring amid all that’s happening within us and around us. It is a constant in our lives and yet always in a state of flux and flow. The amazing, heroic swallows are back and that fills so many of us with joy. To sit and watch them swooping and circling, imagining all they went through to get back here is truly awe-inducing. Perhaps our everyday mindfulness practices this month can be to garner moments of comfort from simply sitting listening to the birds or quietly watching the swallows. Can we put our phones and the news aside for a small while and feel the life that is bursting forth at this time of year? This poem ‘Allow’ by Danna Faulds is a nice one to contemplate.

‘There is no controlling life. / Try corralling a lightning bolt, / containing a tornado. Dam a

stream and it will create a new / channel. Resist, and the tide / will sweep you off your feet.

Allow, and grace will carry / you to higher ground. The only / safety lies in letting it all in – / the wild / and the weak; fear, / fantasies, failures and success. / When loss rips off the doors of / the heart, or / sadness veils your / vision with despair, practice / becomes simply bearing the truth. / In the choice to / let go of your / known way of being, the whole / world is revealed to your new eyes.’

Mindfulness in May

Drop-in mindfulness hour at CECAS, Myross Wood, Leap on Tuesday mornings 10-11am, May 12, 19 and 26. €12. 

Beginners, returners and newcomers are always welcome.
For more information: phone: 087 2700572 or email:
susanoreganmindfulness@gmail.com 

FB: susanoreganmindfulness. www.mindhaven.ie

I was recently shown a photograph of something from a local beach that I hadn’t noticed before. It resembled a giant honeycomb growing over a mussel-covered rock. The thing was a colony of Sabellaria alveolata, the honeycomb worm. The individual worms are only about four centimetres long, but each builds a tube made of sand grains and tiny pieces of broken shell, all stuck together with mucus, which is attached to neighbouring tubes, forming an extensive colony that looks like something a bee or wasp might have made. At low tide, the worm hides inside the tube, but when the tide comes in, it extends its tentacles to catch microscopic food particles. Most Sabellaria reefs are found between tide marks, although the largest one in Ireland, the Wicklow reef, is sub-tidal.

The word ‘worm’ doesn’t apply precisely to any one group of animals. Some creatures are called worms that are not worms at all – I wrote before about the shipworm, which is a bivalve mollusc. A woodworm is a beetle, so is a glow-worm; an inch-worm is a type of caterpillar, a slow worm is a legless lizard. Several other unrelated creatures, most known only to zoologists, are called worms too, such as arrow worms, acorn worms, bootlace worms and tongue worms.  

The worms that ordinary people are most likely to encounter belong to the phyla Platyhelminthes, Nematoda and Annelida. The platyhelminths are the flatworms, tapeworms and flukes. Flatworms are mostly free-living. Some are brightly coloured sea creatures; others are invasive garden pests such as the Australian and New Zealand varieties. Tapeworms resemble very long strands of tagliatelle, made up of dozens of units that are actually bags of eggs. They are all parasitic, living in the digestive systems of many vertebrates from fish to pigs, and humans too if you don’t cook your meat adequately. Flukes are also parasitic; the best known in Ireland is the liver fluke, Fasciola hepatica, which infects sheep and cattle. The serious tropical disease, bilharzia, is caused by a fluke called Schistosoma.

The most abundant worms are the nematodes or round worms. There are many thousands of species, mostly microscopic, living in every known ecosystem from the Arctic to the ocean floor; in some soils, there might be a million nematodes per square metre. Many roundworms are parasites; those of the family Anisakidae are common in fish; eating raw fish can lead to anisakiasis which, not surprisingly, is common in Japan. In the tropics, other nematodes cause more horrible afflictions, such as elephantiasis and river blindness. 

The annelids are segmented worms; their bodies are divided into many sections, each with copies of all the important organs. There are three classes of annelids: Oligochaeta, the earthworms; Hirudinea, the leeches; and Polychaeta, the marine worms.

There are about 10,000 species of oligochaetes, most living in soil, some in freshwater. Common earthworms, Lumbricus terrestris, are vital to soil quality, because their burrowing carries nutrients such as leaf litter, as well as air and water, from the surface down into the soil; Charles Darwin’s last book was on that subject. The worms that live in your compost bins – you all have compost bins of course – are brandlings, Eisenia fetida.

The longest earthworm in Europe is Lumbricus badensis from the German Black Forest, which grows to 60 centimetres, but the real monsters belong to the family Megascolecidae, e.g. the giant Gippsland earthworm from Australia, which can reach two metres.

Leeches are similar to oligochaetes, except that they have a sucker at both ends, used for locomotion (they move in the same manner as inch worms) or for attachment to a host. There are over 600 species, three-quarters of which are blood-suckers, the rest free-living predators. Fishermen might be familiar with a large leech called Pontobdella muricata, which lives on skates and rays. The medicinal leech, Hirudo medicinalis, has been used for centuries for the spurious cure-all of ‘blood-letting’. Today, doctors use them to reduce swelling and restore circulation after microsurgery, and also to treat varicose veins. When I was doing a frog survey in Malawi, I spent most evenings wading around at the edge of a small lake, and when I got back to my hut and took off my boots, there were often leeches inside, sucking away at my blood.

The last group of annelids are the polychaetes. There are also about 10,000 species, divided into two sub-classes: Sedentaria and Errantia. The lugworm is one of the former. It leads a dull life in a U-shaped burrow in muddy sand, above which, as every shore angler knows, is the cast – that coil of sand that has passed through its digestive system. Other sedentary polychaetes live in tubes made out of mucus and sand or fragments of shell, e.g. the peacock worm and the sand mason worm, both common on the lower shore. The honeycomb worm belongs to this group.

Some sedentary worms make calcareous tubes: Spirorbis, whose tube is coiled like a tiny snail shell, lives attached to rocks and seaweed; Pomatoceros, which makes long, white wiggly tubes, is  often seen on rocks, shells and fishermen’s buoys.

Many tube worms have feathery, fan-like tentacles that can resemble beautiful flowers. The Christmas tree worm, Spirobranchus giganteus, found in tropical seas, has two fans made of several whorls, each looking like an artificial Christmas tree. 

The Errantia contains active, predatory worms. Ragworms, also used as bait by anglers, have “parapodia” or false legs growing out from each segment, with which they crawl or swim. Unlike lugworms, they have tentacles, eyes and, in some species, big sharp jaws. The sea mouse, Aphrodita aculeata, which you might find at extreme low tide, looks more like a drowned mouse than a worm, being short, fat and hairy, but its bristles shine in gorgeous iridescent greens and purples. Another group, the gossamer worms, are specialised for life in the plankton, where they paddle about emitting a yellow bioluminescence at night.

Most annelids are harmless, though there are exceptions. The Mongolian Death worm from the Gobi Desert can kill humans by squirting a deadly poison; just touching this worm is fatal. Fortunately it only exists in the minds of cryptozoologists. But fireworms, found on tropical coral reefs, have bristles which contain a toxin that can cause pain, irritation and nausea. The larger errant polychaetes can give you a nasty bite. One species is especially scary –  the trap-jaw worm. This creature, which can grow to nearly three metres in length, spends its time buried in the sand around Indo-Pacific coral reefs. When it senses a fish nearby, it lunges up out of its burrow, and its huge open jaws snap shut on the surprised fish, which is then dragged down into the sand. A reef fish called Scolopsis affinis has learned how to retaliate by squirting jets of water at the worms.

Zoologists are forever changing the classifications that I learned years ago. Beard worms, for example, once in their own phylum, Pogonophora, are now classified as annelids. The best known of these is Riftia pachyptila, a giant tube worm that can also grow to three metres. It lives around hydrothermal vents deep in the Pacific, part of a community of animals adapted to darkness and temperatures as high as 380 degrees Celsius. Also now placed among the annelids are the sipunculids. I was once very pleased to be able to identify a plateful of these unimpressive worms in a restaurant in Xiamen, China, where they are a local delicacy. They came in a sort of jelly, and like so many odd things the Chinese eat, tasted only of soy sauce, garlic and ginger.

The Chinese are not the only ones who eat worms. The palolo worm, similar to a ragworm, is very important in the South Pacific. Cork-born writer and artist Robert Gibbings, in his book ‘Over the Reefs’, described their capture in Samoa. On just a few nights in October or November, when the moon is in its last quarter, the palolo rise to the surface in great writhing masses and release their reproductive segments, which are the edible bits. They apparently taste better than oysters but smell like the reef at low tide.

To the average person, worms are disgusting, squirmy things, and parasitic worms are so unpleasant that anyone without an understanding of natural selection must surely wonder why they exist at all. Sir David Attenborough (who is 100 years old this month) uses the nematode that causes river blindness to explain his agnosticism – how can a merciful god have created a worm which lives only by burrowing into a child’s eyeball?

But the majority of worms are unobtrusive, some are quite beautiful, and many are important environmental engineers; even the nasty ones have ingenious life-cycles. We should be fascinated by worms, not be disgusted by them.

We have all seen the price of petrol and diesel soar over the past month, with blockades at pumps, slow moving haulier convoys and tractor protests. Some garages have limited fuel supplies per vehicle and some pumps have run out of fuel. The cost of home heating is reported to have increased by up to 20 per cent since the start of the Iran war.

Some countries have been much less affected by global threats to the supplies of energy. Iceland, for example, runs entirely on renewable energy. Approximately 75.5 per cent of the country’s electricity comes from hydropower, which is their primary source of electricity, the other 24.5 per cent coming from geothermal energy. As early as 2022, 60 per cent of vehicles in Iceland ran on electricity, and electricity costs remain stable and low.

Paraguay produces all of its electricity from hydropower. Nepal uses hydropower for 98.6 per cent of its total electrical output, solar energy producing the remaining 1.4 per cent. Nepal is about 2.11 times the size of Ireland in area and has a population of 29.6 million people, compared to Ireland‘s 5.3 million people.

Ethiopia, which is about 16 times bigger than Ireland, with a population of 135 million, produces 96 per cent of its electricity from hydropower, with wind energy making up the remaining four per cent.

Certainly, energy independence is not only a possibility but can be demonstrated in countries across the globe to be a reality. 

Electricity prices in Ireland are among the highest in Europe, with further increases of four to nine per cent warned for summer 2026. This is due to the reliance on imports of gas and oil to supply electricity and the global pressures on supplies of those commodities. 

Ireland’s government has however committed to ensuring energy is affordable, sustainable, and secure and that Ireland will move from an oil and gas-based energy system to an electricity-led system, maximising renewable energy and being linked into Europe’s energy systems.

EirGrid, a Private Limited Company owned by the Irish Government is responsible for planning, managing and developing Ireland’s high-voltage electricity grid. This high-voltage grid is connected to the low voltage distribution system managed by ESB Networks who are also government-owned and who supply power directly to homes and business around the country. 

Despite objections from rural Irish residents, the transition to sustainable energy is focused almost entirely on large wind farms feeding into the already existing centralised electricity grid. Research shows however that decentralised energy systems are the most efficient solution available to enable low-carbon energy transitions. 

Decentralised energy systems use several different technologies such as small-scale wind turbines, geothermal, hydropower and solar, giving flexibility to meet energy demand from industries, households, and state enterprises such as hospitals, universities and public buildings. 

Almost all countries achieving close to 100 per cent renewable energy supply do so by using digitalised, smart, decentralised supply systems that operate at building scale or block scale.

Decentralisation creates hundreds or thousands of tiny, localised electricity-generating systems attached to homes, communities or businesses. Taking advantage of localised environmental conditions to share power, they provide electricity locally feeding excess back into the power grid for distribution elsewhere.

To do this however would require that Ireland rethink the policy that favours a centralised system which suffers a five per cent loss of power, as that power is transported long distances. Decentralisation would need a greater mix of energy production technologies to be used and businesses that are extremely heavy on energy, such as data centres, would have to become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. 

Currently data centres use about 23 per cent of Ireland’s total energy consumption. This is expected to rise to 35 per cent by 2030; however they also provide considerable financial support to Ireland’s green energy sector, by underpinning the development of new renewable generation that will help to achieve the target of 70 per cent electricity from renewables by 2030. 

The Irish Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) created a policy aligning data centre growth with decarbonisation. It requires planning applications to demonstrate on-site or nearby renewable energy generation. New data centres connecting to the electricity network are required to provide electricity generation and/or storage capacity either onsite or in local proximity. This electricity generation and storage must match the requested data centre maximum demand capacity and will be required to participate in the wholesale electricity market thus supporting the overall system.

An article on science direct.com ‘Ten questions concerning decentralised energy systems governance’ states that “If we are to succeed with achieving the ambitious low-carbon energy transition targets embraced by many nation-states, cities and corporations, electrification and development of more decentralised energy systems will have to play a large role, and their governance is bound to become a matter of increased attention and interest. A decentralised energy system implies fundamental changes in electricity sector governance towards devolution of control, planning, and operation of electricity system functions (production, sales, distribution, and grid balancing) from a few central actors to include also a great many small-scale actors at more localised levels Typically, decentralised energy systems involve shorter-distance supply from small generation units owned by active consumers (individually or as energy communities that may share a microgrid, constitute a positive energy district (PED) or positive energy neighbourhood (PEN), and may also assist in solving local grid operation challenges by offering flexibility in supply and demand. A prerequisite for detecting and tackling local grid congestion challenges and flexibilities in consumption and production towards solutions is the provision of fine-grained information based on digitalisation of the grid through grid company installation of smart meters and sensors.”

Ireland has doubled wind energy capacity over the past 10 years and solar is now Ireland’s third largest source of indigenous electricity generation. It just squeezes in to the list of top ten countries leading the way with wind and solar penetration. 

If, like the Danish government, Ireland required all new wind projects to be between 20 and 50 per cent community-owned, citizens, especially those in rural areas, would immediately benefit financially from the shift to renewables. If this shift also focused on decentralised systems, then community acceptance could facilitate a rapid transition to energy independence and security pushing towards renewable energy targets for 2030 and minimising the threat that comes from geopolitical events triggered by other countries. The Irish government has after all, committed to ensuring energy is affordable, sustainable, and secure.

Every year International Dawn Chorus Day celebrates the natural wonder of birdsong and in particular the dawn chorus, a phenomenon that takes place every morning during the breeding season and starts even before the sun rises writes Branch member Nicholas Mitchell. This year it is on Sunday, May 3 and you can tune in to RTÉ Radio 1 that morning, shortly after midnight, or you can enjoy it in your own garden, local park or surrounding countryside.

Avian spring migrants started leaving their over-wintering grounds in Africa many weeks ago and have been arriving at their northern hemisphere breeding grounds, including Ireland, since April. These summer visitors, like Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Sedge Warbler and Whitethroat, have all added to the chorus of birdsong that began with our resident birds as far back as February. This means that, by the time we get to May, the volume and variety of the chorus has increased manyfold, especially at dawn and dusk.

That is why the West Cork Branch of BirdWatch Ireland hosts a dawn chorus event most years during May. However, every so often, we run a Dusk Chorus event instead. And this is one of those years. The birdsong at this time of day does not have quite the same impact that it does at dawn, in that the chorus does not build to a crescendo. However, it is not without its benefits. There is the obvious bonus of not having to set an alarm clock at some unearthly hour. Another is that the birdsong is more ‘spread out’ and less of a wall of noise. This allows different birdsong of each bird to be separated and highlighted more easily for the audience. Also this time of day makes it more appealing as a family event.

The event will start at 8pm in the Long Strand car park, Castlefreke. We will gather there for a while and then probably walk up into the woods behind. It will last an hour or so and, as with most Branch outings, it is free of charge and open to everyone. Any walking will be on good paths and appropriate footwear is recommended, as is warm clothing and, most importantly, midge repellent!

BirdWatch Ireland West Cork Branch News

Upcoming outings being held by the Branch are:
Sunday May 24: Dusk Chorus at Long Strand, Castlefreke
Sunday May 31: Cape Clear Island

Visit our website www.birdwatchirelandwestcork.ie for more information about these events. For more information about the Branch, contact Fiona O’Neill at secretary@birdwatchirelandwestcork.ie.

Facebook @BirdWatchIrelandWestCork

Instagram @birdwatch_ireland_west_cork

Kinsale is preparing to mark a historic milestone on Saturday, May 23, as the community gathers at the Kinsale Campus for ‘A Thriving Future’, a mini-festival celebrating the 21st birthday of Transition Town Kinsale.

While now a global phenomenon with thousands of initiatives worldwide, the Transition movement traces its roots back to 2005 at this very campus. It was here that the first ‘Energy Descent Action Plan’ was authored, sparking a practical, community-led response to climate change that soon spread across the globe through the efforts of figures like Rob Hopkins.

The festival invites attendees to connect offline and explore the essential pillars of a resilient community such as local food systems, renewable energy, zero-waste living, and the restoration of nature.

The event promises a rich programme of experiences, from hands-on skill-sharing workshops to live music and local cuisine and brings together a distinguished group of visionaries who have shaped the sustainability landscape, led by Rob Hopkins, the co-founder of the Transition Network. Joining him is Mary Reynolds, the acclaimed “reformed” landscape designer and founder of ‘We Are The Ark’, a movement urging people to return their gardens to the wild.

The speaker line-up also features Thomas O’Connor, a regenerative farmer and community activist from Transition Kerry, and artist, filmmaker and environmental activist Lisa Fingleton. Local expertise will be represented by Donal Chambers, the Chairperson of Transition Town Kinsale and also a teacher of permaculture and horticulture in the Kinsale Campus, as well as specialist in renewable energy, agroforestry and rewilding, alongside Maria Young, a coordinator with Green Spaces for Health.

Whether you are a long-time sustainability advocate or simply curious about building a more resilient future, this unique celebration offers a welcoming space to learn and grow. Tickets are currently available on Eventbrite, and the community looks forward to sharing this landmark day in the birthplace of the Transition movement.

In keeping with the movement’s core values, this is a strictly zero-waste event, and organisers kindly ask all visitors to bring their own reusable cup, plate, and cutlery. 

What does organic beef farming and homeopathy have in common: Claire Hurley, the force of nature who returned to her West Cork roots in 2009 to take over the 55-acre family farm, despite its uphill challenges. Claire farms an upland hilly farm in the townland of Gortnaclohy (field of the stones) near Skibbereen. “That should tell you everything,” she tells Mary O’Brien, laughing. Determined to bypass the Industrial Revolution altogether, by pairing the hardy, ancient genetics of Belted Galloway cattle with holistic animal health principles and organic standards, Claire has built a ‘birth-to-burger’ enterprise that prioritises animal welfare and soil health above all else.

Before becoming a farmer, Claire studied and worked in horticulture before going on to study and qualify as a homeopath.

She has fond memories of a childhood with her grandfather, when they “tilled small fields of fodder beet, potato’s and mangles with a single draft horse”. Mainstream methods of farming felt unsuited to her, as she had “neither the capital or motivation to intensively reclaim or fertilise such a rough landscape or to erect a large slatted shed that would never seen a return of my investment”.

Initially Claire bought four heifers from County Clare, “raising more than a few eyebrows as the breed was a rare and peculiar sight at the time.” In 2011 she acquired a bull, and in 2013 she slaughtered her first animal and sold weanlings. The frozen meat proved a difficult sell at the time. In 2015 she completed a diploma in Speciality Food production at UCC to better familiarise herself with food legislation, labelling, safety and training. Through this course she many gained friends but also confidence in what she was producing – a quality and ethical product.

In 2017 her friend Andy was selling his small food trailer and, as she puts it, “the rest as they say is history”.

Her hot food stall is now a regular sight at the Skibbereen Farmers’ Market every Saturday, and from Easter Sunday and every Sunday until the end of September at Schull Country Market. The main attraction is the Belted Galloway organic Beef Burger on a choice of bread roll – sourdough, ancient grain or brioche – with cheddar or Gubbeen cheese, and homegrown organic onions, tomatoes, gerkins and salad. They also serve a breakfast with the same choice of bread, an organic egg, Baltimore Pig (nitrite free) bacon and homegrown organic onions, salad and tomatoes.  Claire says it’s “a great sense of satisfaction when you serve the beef burger, salad, tomatoes, onions and lettuce that you have grown and cooked yourself!” A selection of frozen meat is always available at the stall.

Claire began her conversion to organic farming in 2010, “sure of the fact that I would continue to farm the land in the way it had always been done”. Having sold the remaining animals, she researched what sort of animal would best fit the habitat, and “landed on the Belted Galloway”, a breed that thrives on a grass-based diet and natural grazing. “They have a longer gastro-intestinal tract, which gives them the pot-bellied appearance, better to extract nutrients from rough grazing and convert into a nutrient dense meat. The breed has the rare ability to marble first and then put on backfat, they do not develop much fat under their hides; instead have a double coat of hair which provides excellent protection in cold, wet and windy weather, perfect for out wintering. They are naturally polled so no requirement for dehorning.” Excess grass in summertime is baled as haylage and supplementary fed so the herd can maintain a natural life as possible. “They are easy calving and excellent mothers so need minimal intervention.”

Claire believes that it has never been more important than now to move away from large-scale, long chain food production to more local agriculture. “Where food production systems rely upon a network of small, usually sustainably-run, family farms, which takes into consideration; the soil type and climate lending to the type of crop or animal to be grown there,” she explains. In her opinion, “Organic farming has not got the dependency on artificial fertilisers, vaccines, antibiotics, vaccines or petrochemicals.”

Homeopathy –  a system of medicine that uses highly diluted substances to trigger the body’s natural healing – plays a significant role in her farming practice. “A key principle would be the observation of signs and symptoms indicating the nature of the imbalance, be that plant or animal or human,” shares Claire, who has used homeopathy in a variety of cases such as calf scour, retained cleaning and a horse with an eye injury. In 2019 she did some training with Homeopathy at Wellie Level to teach the responsible use of homeopathy on the farm, though “Covid brought this to a halt”.

Farming has not been without its challenges. Beginning in September 2024, her herd succumbed to TB. “I ended up losing just under half my herd which included my in-calf cows and heifers, along with the genetics built up over the years.” In 2025, with much reduced stock, she wasn’t sure she would continue, but in November she purchased six organic Belted Galloways from Brennus on Cape Clear. “As the seasons have rolled around new calves have arrived from the remaining herd and life on the farm has returned to normal.”

Looking back, Claire reflects that “things have progressed so far, I never set out to be producing and cooking all my own produce at the Farmers’ markets but I suppose each step borrowed another and as you try to hone and perfect each stage you realise you’re halfway through something else!”

Her philosophy on animal welfare is clear: “An animal that is reared on a natural diet, with its mother, in its family grouping – free of pain and unnecessary intervention – gives it the best chance to be as healthy as possible and without vaccines and antibiotics; and when the time comes – to be transported and handled and slaughtered humanely. I think the consumer appreciates the fact that the animal, which is consumed, is well-looked-after from birth to death, lives a relatively free and good life. As humans, if we are choosing to eat meat, that is the least we can do for the animal who gives his or her life. That every step in that journey is carried out in the best interest of that animal.”

Each stage of the process has been a huge learning curve, from the animal rearing to handling and cooking the end product. The slaughtering process, meat hanging and cutting is carried out by MJ O’Neills in Clonakilty, “whose expertise is vital and without whose help none of it would be possible”.

Farmers’ markets provide more than just income. “Farmers markets are a huge social hub and have a huge sense of community so I do look forward to starting back after a long winter just feeding and talking to cows!” She still keeps horses and enjoys regular lessons, having purchased a young Irish Draught mare which she’s breaking in at the moment. “Of course the horses give the benefit of a mixed grazing system which is very important in organic farming as it interrupts the parasite life cycle. As if I need an excuse!”

Recently Claire has joined the pop up shop at Levis’ in Ballydehob to sell a selection of frozen organic meat. It is a one stop shop for tasty local ingredients in an iconic setting from 9:30am to 12:30pm each Wednesday.

Between that first flight and this one I must have flown between two and six times a year. I think that there are very few years when I did not fly at all, though it must have happened –  when I’d just had baby, when we travelled by ferry to Ireland, when I took a train instead of a flight on the European mainland. However, those years with no flights are few and far between. Let’s say that I have flown four times a year for the last (almost) 70 years. That’s 280 flights. Some short haul. Some medium. Many long haul. Dreadful really.

I pride myself in being someone who cares for the environment. I actively support efforts that protect nature. I shop local, avoid palm oil, plant trees and compost. Go me…except that I’m not really making a great sacrifice. It does not take much effort to read a label and buy the product that does not use palm oil. Recycling is probably the most demanding thing that I do, as it requires triage and packing up the car to bring it all into town. Not exactly a Herculean task. I am also someone who does not feel the need to buy more stuff, be it clothes, shoes or homewares and gadgets. That’s easy because I have a house stocked to the brim with stuff. Half the time I don’t even remember what I have. That does not stop me from grabbing a fast fashion item that catches my eye in the sales, or to occasionally buy a new gadget online without ever wondering where or how it was made. Going without a car is impossible. Even with my Free Travel Pass, most journeys are in my car.

I mention all this because, as I fly high above the clouds, I realise that though I do truly care enough about the environment to do positive things, I apparently don’t care enough to stop doing things that have a negative impact, like flying off to someone’s birthday party.

I lie to myself about how much I care and what a “good consumer” I am. In my defence, it is difficult and expensive to get off this island any other way than a cheap flight. A flight from Cork to Bilbao costs €54.30. A passage on the ferry the same day cost €159 and takes between 27 and 31 hours. Closer to home is the same problem. Though I have my FT pass, it took me seven hours to get back home from Galway on the bus, and trying to make a flight from my home using public transportation is a nightmare – even when it’s free.

I used one of those carbon footprint calculators to check my CO2 usage and I’m not the worst: 7.3 tons/year which is considered a climate conscious consumer (five-10 tons per year). Climate villains are over 10 tons of CO2). 3.4 tons of my footprint were generated by travel. I hang my head in shame, but don’t expect to forgo a sun holiday, or a visit to my sister at some point in 2026. ‘Mea culpa, mea culpa’. 

Lastly, I want to take a moment to mark the passing of a man who will truly be missed in Clonakilty and beyond. The town was in shock when the news started circulating that Tommy O’Donovan, of O’Donovan’s Hotel, had suddenly died. In our house we couldn’t believe it – didn’t want to believe it. Sure, wasn’t he the Grand Marshall at the Paddy’s Day parade with his sisters, Therese and Dena, just the day before. Sure, wasn’t I just chatting with him last weekend. Sure, wasn’t he up a ladder just a few days ago. Sure, wasn’t he over at the Women’s Shed just that morning? Denial put up a fight but in the end was the sad truth: Tommy was gone. Never brash or loud, he was nonetheless the essence of our town, very much a mover and shaker. An integral part of the motor that has made Clonakilty and West Cork one of the most successful and progressive areas of Ireland. A quiet environmentalist, a community leader who was more often in the background and yet got things done: the allotments, the men’s shed, the bike scheme…too many small and large contributions to mention here. The outpouring at his funeral service reflected how loved he was. The term ‘pillar of the community’ is often flashed about when someone passes. Tommy was and will always be a true pillar of our community, and with his passing we all feel a bit wobbly.

I often talk to cows; where I live, there isn’t much else to talk to. They can look so miserable, standing in muddy fields, soaked by the pouring rain and battered by the wind. But then, on a sunny day, chewing the cud, they seem quite content. They stare back at me with those great big eyes and inscrutable expressions while I assure them that I’m not a carnivore. But I do drink milk, and life without cheese would be unthinkable, so in a small way, I contribute to their misery. 

What cows don’t ever appear to be is intelligent, so the title of this article must seem an oxymoron (which itself could be a bovine pun). But recently, it has been discovered that one cow has learned to use tools. Veronika, a Brown Swiss living in Austria, uses a broom to scratch her back. She picks up the handle with her mouth and manoeuvres it with her tongue towards wherever needs scratching. She even knows which parts of the brush to use for which jobs – the bristles for a general back scratch, the handle for getting at itches in difficult places underneath.

Many animals can use tools. In 1960, the great Jane Goodall, who died last year, first observed a chimpanzee using a grass stem to collect termites. Chimps can also scoop honey out of wild beehives with thick sticks, and use leaves as spoons. Orangutans construct nests from leaves and branches, use a variety of twigs for food gathering tasks, and know that poking a catfish with a stick will make  the fish jump out of the water where it can be easily grabbed. Elephants break off branches to swat flies and scratch itches, and some dolphins protect their noses with sponges when they are foraging for fish hidden in the sea bed. Egyptian vultures use stones to break ostrich eggs, and New Caledonian crows modify sticks and leaves, just like apes, to get food. Even some invertebrates use tools: the Indo-Pacific veined octopus makes shelters out of discarded coconut shells, bottles or other litter, while the Hawaiian boxer crab faces any threat with a sea anemone in each claw, like a Wild West outlaw with two guns. So perhaps a  brush-wielding cow is not so strange.

Cows are ungulates, i.e. mammals with hooves. There are two types of ungulate: the odd-toed ones in the order Perissodactyla (horses, rhinos and tapirs); and those with an even number of toes in the order Artiodactyla – the camels, pigs, hippos and ruminants. (Some zoologists, controversially,  place whales in the latter order too, but that is another story). There are six families of ruminants, including the deer, the giraffes and the bovids. The bovid family is further divided into three sub-families: antelopes,  goats and sheep, and buffaloes and cattle. 

Ruminants all have four-chambered stomachs. A cow eats grass and swallows it quickly. The grass passes into the first and largest chamber, the rumen, where bacteria and protists start to break it down and produce various nutrients. When the rumen is full, the partly digested grass is regurgitated and chewed; the cow is literally ruminating, perhaps having profound bovine thoughts. When the cud is broken down sufficiently, it is swallowed again, and this time passes into the second chamber, the reticulum, where any alien objects (like plastic) gather. Next, food goes to the omasum, which absorbs water and fatty acids, and finally into the abomasum, where further digestion takes place. 

There are two reasons for all this: firstly, grass is very difficult to digest; and secondly, ruminants are, in the wild, constantly under threat from predators such as lions and tigers, so it is vital to get as much food inside as quickly as possible, then digest it at leisure in a safe place.       

The domestic cow’s closest relatives are the six species of buffalo (five Asian and one African); two species of bison (American and European); and three species of wild cattle – gaur, bentang and yak (which have each been domesticated too). The gaur comes from India and SE Asia; the bentang, which is critically endangered, survives only in a few places in SE Asia and northern Australia; and yaks are the extraordinarily hairy cattle from Tibet and other remote parts of western China. (I tried yak once, about twenty years ago in Yunnan Province, fried with Szechuan peppercorns and pak choi; it was the just about last mammal meat I ever ate). 

There are two more notable bovines: the kouprey and the aurochs. The kouprey, Bos sauveli, is the national animal of Cambodia, not that many people inside or outside Cambodia know this. The concept of a national animal is meaningless anyway (we don’t have one here), especially in Cambodia, because the kouprey is extinct – the Cambodians ate them all. Koupreys once lived in areas of mixed grassland and forest from Thailand to Vietnam. Habitat loss, as well as hunting, contributed to their demise – much of Cambodia’s forests were lost during the Vietnamese War and the insane rule of the Khmer Rouge;  commercial, often illegal, logging since has done even more harm. The last sighting of a live kouprey was in 1983. There are none in captivity; only one was ever kept in a foreign zoo, in Paris; it died during World War Two. The nearest I came to a kouprey was the statue of two bulls in the town of Sen Monoron, in the north-east of Cambodia.

 The aurochs, Bos primigenius, was the ancestor of modern domestic cattle. It was a massive animal, the bulls nearly six feet at the shoulder, and each horn nearly three feet long. It once lived all over Europe, Asia and North Africa, grazing alongside Irish elk, straight-tusked elephants and narrow-nosed rhinoceros. Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens hunted the aurochs, and painted pictures of it, along with other animals, on the walls of their caves. The giant bulls of Greek mythology, symbols of power and sexual potency, were aurochs. But by the end of the 17th century, they had all been exterminated. (The word ‘aurochs’, by the way, is from Old German, and is related to ‘ox’; it can be singular or plural; an alternative plural is ‘aurochsen’.)

Domestication of the aurochs occurred twice: in the Middle East, about 10,000 years ago, this produced our beef and dairy cattle, Bos taurus; and in India, about the same time, gave rise to Bos indicus, the humped cattle or zebu. These were introduced into Africa about 3,000 years ago and hybridised with African aurochs, which resulted in breeds such as the enormously-horned Ankole. 

While cattle here are just agricultural commodities, to the Hindus they are sacred and often lead pampered lives; an estimated five million cows roam freely in Indian cities. Unfortunately, there is little for a cow to eat in a big city, except human rubbish; according to a 2017 article in the Times of India, nearly 1,000 cows die a painful death each year in the city of Lucknow alone, due to feeding on plastic. In a 2021 report in the same newspaper, one cow was found to have 77 kilograms of plastic in its stomach. So much for being sacred.

Cattle kill, on average, twenty-five people every year in the UK and USA, and probably many more worldwide – some are in farmyard accidents, others involve stupid people walking across fields where cows are grazing. In Spain, where bull-fighting (a relic of Roman barbarity) is still considered a sport,  matadors and those idiots running through the streets of Pamplona during the Fiesta de San Fermin, sometimes get gored by the horns of the animals they are tormenting; that seems fair enough to me.

Cattle cause more harm by the production of methane, mostly by eructation resulting from their digestion. Methane makes up 19 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, 21 per cent of it coming from cattle. Certain food additives can limit this, such as rapeseed or seaweed – particularly the red alga Asparagopsis, an invasive species from warm waters. Research in California found feeding a seaweed supplement to grazing beef cattle  cut methane production by nearly 40 per cent. 

I don’t want to upset farmers – theirs is one of the few jobs that is truly essential; they should be appreciated, and paid, much more. But there are an awful lot of domestic cattle on the planet; the current world population is about 1,500,000,000 – one third of all mammalian biomass. That could be reduced. Apart from the methane they produce, such a huge number needs an equally huge amount of grazing land, much of which was once natural habitat for wildlife – whether rainforests in South America, or gorse-covered hillsides in West Cork. Perhaps now, with the knowledge that cows are not stupid, but are capable of deliberate thought and decision making, people might stop eating them.

In the early 19th century copper mining was prevalent across West Cork with miners brought in from Cornwall in the early part of the century to supplement the workforce. While back then landowners owned the mineral rights below the surface of their land and no government licence was needed to mine copper, today a government licence issued by The Geoscience Regulation Office (GSRO) is needed to even prospect for minerals. At the end of 2025, a total of 18 Prospecting Licences (PLs) were issued in West Cork – to ‘Aurum Discovery Ltd’. These licenses each relate to a portion of land outlined and mapped in the GSRO document. While copper is one of the most useful metals in the push for clean energy, mining it can cause tremendous destruction of the environment, therefore Innovative solutions are needed and are being developed writes Fiona Hayes.

Copper increased in industrial importance in the 19th century with the invention of the electric battery in 1800 and electromagnets two-and-a-half decades later. Commercial telegraph introduced in 1837 further increased reliance on copper as a conductor and traditional telephone landlines continue to be made of copper wires today. Indeed, a single iPhone contains around 6gms of copper.

In West Cork, copper mining started in Allihies in 1813, Ballycumisk and Horse Island in 1814, then opened in Balllydehob, Cappagh, Gortavallig, Kilrohane, Bantry, Scart, Derryinagh, Dereenlomane, Mount Gabriel, Dunbeacon, Gortycloona and Skeagh. 

With ‘Aurum Discovery Ltd’  was granted a licence in 2025 to prospect in West Cork, it’s important to note that this doesn’t imply a licence to mine for minerals. Such a licence would require a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to support applications to the Local Authority for Planning Permission and to the Environmental Protection Agency for an Integrated Pollution Control or Industrial Emissions Licence. A period of time would then be allowed for statutory consultation with a wide range of Government bodies and public scrutiny of the EIS along with public comment.

There have been prospecting licences continuously covering these geographical areas for at least the past decade. Prior to Aurum being granted licence on these particular land blocks, they were held by ‘Adventous Exploration Limited’ (AEL), who engaged Aurum to manage exploration projects and provide technical expertise. In fact (AEL) held 100 per cent of the 114,000 hectares West Cork licence block. 

AEL have a Joint Venture Agreement with the Canadian-based mining company ‘First Quantum Minerals’ and have identified areas for secondary follow up prior to potential drill testing of targets and exploration of base metals. First Quantum Minerals specialise in copper mining. 

The areas of West Cork being considered occur along up-plunge folds of land between the Sheep’s Head and Glandore. The initial investigations have identified sediment-hosted copper and silver (Cu-Ag) deposits comparable to several other world-class sites. To determine whether these sites would yield a profitable level of mineral extraction, it is likely that further work, including some drilling, will need to be done. This will require landowner permission and Environmental Screening Assessment. 

The GSRO considered 48 submissions opposing the grant of these licences, however practically all the submissions focused on mining rather than prospecting; thus were discounted as reasons for withholding the licences. 

Mining, rather than prospecting however, requires three separate consents obtained from three different agencies: Planning permission from the relevant Local Authority; An Integrated Pollution Control (IPC) or an Industrial Emissions (IE) Licence from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These licences contain strict conditions on how a mine must operate to protect the environment from pollution; A mining lease or licence issued by the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment .

If a mining licence were to be considered, a public consultation period would be published in a local newspaper and at experience.arcgis.com.

All of this however, raises serious questions for people interested in environmental protection and climate change. 

The prospecting company is interested in copper because it is one of the most useful metals in the push for clean energy. Renewable energy systems use four to six times the amount of copper as do fossil fuel or nuclear plants. A photovoltaic solar power plant contains approximately 5.5 tons of copper per megawatt of power generation. A single 660-kW turbine is estimated to contain some 800 pounds (350 kg) of copper. Industry is predicting a 70 per cent increase in copper mining to meet the 2050 climate decarbonisation goals.

Mining copper however can pollute the atmosphere with dust and contaminate the water table with chemicals used to extract the mineral. Some modern mines fear having to pump contaminated wastewater around the mine forever to prevent it entering the water table.

Innovative solutions are needed. As materials scientist Prof Mary Ryan of Imperial University, London said, “The world needs to electrify its energy systems, and success will absolutely depend on copper. The metal is going to be the biggest bottleneck in this process.”

Prof Mary Ryan heads up the Rio Tinto Centre for Future Materials opened in 2024 and based at Imperial College London, in partnership with several international university groups. 

The centre’s first project is looking for responsible ways to source copper. Of course, ensuring improved recycling of copper from batteries, cables and so on will be important, but the centre is looking at questions such as, can the mineral be extracted without disturbing the rocks at all? For example, could viruses and bacteria be used to harvest copper?

The team have also been searching for underground sites where copper-rich brines, created by volcanic systems are still in liquid form. The volcanic systems could provide geothermal energy to pump the brine to the surface via boreholes. Sites in New Zealand and Japan have been identified as possibilities for this technology.

Franklin Keck and Ion Ioannou co-founded the company RemePhy Technologies, a spinout from Imperial University PhD research. RemePhy are pioneering the use of GM technology to develop plant-bacterial systems that have an enhanced ability to extract metal from the soil. They state, “We’re building plant–microbe systems that clean contaminated soil and recover critical metals as the plants grow. Thereby reducing disruption, versus dig-and-dump approaches; and unlocking stranded brownfield and mining-legacy sites.”

The Irish Government, in response to the latest energy crisis precipitated by war between USA/Israel and Iran, has stated it will pursue energy sovereignty focusing more on renewables. This will require copper.

Possibly, technical solutions such as the ones RemePhy are developing, hold the key to finding the quantities of copper we need for this transition. Perhaps new prospecting licences will not lead to new mines but, by using innovative technologies, will nevertheless enable our 80 per cent renewable electricity target by 2030. Let’s hope so.

By Dave Rees and Nicholas Mitchell

The West Cork Branch held the inaugural first bird race on January 29, 2017. Apparently there had been a bird race in earlier years but no records exist. Our Chair at the time, Paul Connaughton, felt that this would be a great opportunity to showcase birding in West Cork and attract both experienced and novice birders. Six teams registered for that first race. The number of teams entering the race remained the broadly same for the first few years and then there was a gap for Covid in 2021 and 2022. On its resumption, registrations started to increase, and families and students started to come along. 

The race is now held on the first Sunday in February and this year a record 16 teams registered. The teams gathered at Scally’s car park, ready for the 8.30am start. There was the usual excited chat going on, with friends catching up, renewing friendly rivalries and trying not to give away too much about their plans: where they would head first or their treasured spots for guaranteed birds. The weather was set fair, with no rain forecast, but the sun’s glare was going to be an issue, particularly when looking out to sea. The high tide times were not the friendliest either, with high tide in Clonakilty not due until late afternoon.

At 8.30am sharp the teams scattered to their chosen first spots. The race is confined to an area between the boatyard at Ring in the east and the pier at Rosscarbery in the west, with the N71 road the northern boundary. For some teams, meticulous planning goes into deciding how best to spend their time and which sites have to be visited at certain times. For others it’s a day out birding with friends. Although the teams disperse, there are times when they bump into each other. Our own team, for example, met two others at Sands Cove. We had headed there to look for Rock Pipit, which had been surprisingly difficult to find during the day. Not only did we find Rock Pipit, but had the unexpected bonus of a Black Redstart.  At these unexpected meetings, there is the usual banter and pretence of doing really well, before finally admitting that the day is a little quiet.

As always there’s the last minute rush to call in at a few more sites and try to add one or two extra species to the list before getting back to O’Donovan’s Hotel by 6pm, which is where the fun starts. Whilst the organisers tot up the scores, the stories begin as to who saw what and where. Then the scores are in and announced. This year the winning team was The East Corkers (Paul Moore, Denis O’Sullivan, John Coveney and Mark Shorten) with an impressive total of 100 species, narrowly beating the local C Team (Ciarán Cronin, Colin Bartin, Calvin Jone and Christopher O’Sullivan) by one bird! And in third place with an amazing 95 was the family team Bob’s Mighty Munch Bunch (Sam Bayley, Lucy Bayley (5), Wayne Greene-Salm, Lulu Greene-Salm (11) and Heidi Greene-Salm (9)). Once again we are grateful to Dena, and Tommy (RIP), and their team for hosting us once more at O’Donovan’s.

Since the race started nine years ago, 132 species have been recorded. This year some of the highlights included Black Redstart, Glossy Ibis and Great Spotted Woodpecker.  But the real winner and highlight was the day itself. A great day was had birdwatching in West Cork in good weather and meeting up with other birders later in the day. For those of us involved in organising the race, it was fantastic to see so many teams turn out and in particular to the number of youngsters joining in and obviously enjoying the day. If this sounds like fun, why not put a team together for next year’s race on Sunday, February 4? See you at the start!

In the meantime, why not join us at one of our forthcoming outings. Unless expressly stated, all our events are free and are open to everyone; you do not need to be a member of BirdWatch Ireland

BirdWatch Ireland
West Cork Branch News

Upcoming outings:

Sunday, April 19: Bilingual Nature Walk idir Gaeilge agus Béarla, Baile Bhuirne 

During April: Ad hoc migration outings notified on our WhatsApp Group. The joining link can be found on the home page of our website 

Visit www.birdwatchirelandwestcork.ie for details of upcoming events.

For more information, contact Fiona O’Neill at secretary@birdwatchirelandwestcork.ie

Follow us on: Facebook: @BirdWatchIrelandWestCork. Instagram: @birdwatch_ireland_west_cork

Have you ever jumped back after touching a nettle, shaking your hands after feeling that zingy sting on your skin? Here’s something you might not know: those prickly plants are also one of nature’s tastiest and most powerful wild foods. Rich in iron, calcium and vitamin C, nettles help  keep your bones strong, your blood healthy and your immune system ready for action. This plant actually contains more calcium per 100g than milk, and twice the iron of spinach. As long as nettles are correctly identified and cooked, they are safe to eat and they won’t sting your mouth when you eat them. Once they are steamed, boiled or sautéed, they become soft, safe and delicious.  

When to pick  

Nettles should be picked from March to the end of May from a spot that hasn’t been sprayed with pesticides and not too close to a road. Young nettles are tender, mild and full of vitamins but when nettles start to flower, the leaves will become tougher and can taste bitter and unpleasant!  

Myths  

There are plenty of myths about nettles: Did you know that dock leaves don’t actually work! 

You may have heard someone say “Rub a dock leaf on it!” after a nettle sting. Science tells us dock  leaves do not actually neutralise the sting. The relief often comes from the cooling rubbing motion rather than the leaf itself. In fact, it is heat that removes the sting completely.  

Another myth we hear is that nettles are weeds, with no real use. In fact, for centuries people across Ireland, and beyond, have eaten nettles in soups, breads and teas. They were even used to  make strong fibres for cloth long ago, imagine! Far from being useless, nettles are a nutritional powerhouse and one of the most generous plants you can find.  

Fun Fact  

Here is a magical plant fact. The stalky plants children pick to use as pretend swords – the ones  with a long brown seed head and a pale white collar around the stem – is called plantain. Crushing a plantain leaf, mixing it with spit and gently rubbing it on a nettle sting can reduce itching, swelling and irritation instantly.  Plantain contain compounds which possess antihistamine and anti-inflammatory properties.

With the right preparation, nettles can become a fun way for families to explore wild foods together,  learn about plants and cook something delicious, growing wild in our gardens.  

Recipe 1:Potato and Nettle soup 

This soup is so comforting and bursting with goodness.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 2 tbsp butter

• 1 medium onion chopped

• 1 small leek washed and finely chopped

• 1 large potato, peeled and diced

• 1 clove of garlic crushed or grated

•  salt and freshly ground pepper

• 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock

• 200g or 2 cups packed tightly with washed young nettle leaves 

Method

Heat a large heavy based saucepan, add the olive oil and butter. When the butter sizzles, add the onion, leek, potato and garlic and toss well. Season with salt and pepper and place a circle of parchment paper on top followed by the lid. Sweat on a gentle heat for 10 to 15 mins stirring occasionally until the potato is soft.

Remove parchment, add the stock and simmer for a few mins making sure the vegetables are soft. Add the nettles and simmer for another few minutes.

Purée and add salt and pepper if needed. Ladle into bowls and serve with a spoon of nettle pesto drizzled on top or a spoon of crème fraîche and a drizzle of olive oil.

Wild garlic flowers are also lovely sprinkled on top if available

Recipe 2: Nettle Pesto 

Pesto is so versatile, it adds so much flavour, as well as Vitamin A, C & iron. Use on top of soup, frittata, toss with pasta, in sandwiches.

Pick nettles from March to June from an area that has not been sprayed and away from the roadside. Wearing long gloves, cut the top two to three pairs of leaves. Wash well then place into boiling water for 30 seconds, then into ice cold water.

Ingredients

• 4 cups young nettle leaves washed

• half cup toasted cashew nuts or pine nuts

• 2 tsp lemon juice

• 1 large clove garlic, crushed or grated

• Salt & freshly ground pepper

• half cup extra virgin olive oil

• half cup finely grated Parmesan (ideally parmigiana reggiano)

Method

Place nettles in a food processor with nuts, lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil. Blitz until smooth, then stir in parmesan. Place in sterilised jars and top with olive oil, store in the fridge.

Wild garlic leaves can also be used here instead of nettles and they do not need to be blanched.

There was much discussion in the pub last week about the weather, as usual, particularly the flooding in Co. Wexford. Some suggested that pearl mussels and slugs were to blame, a view also expressed in the newspapers by an Enniscorthy  town councillor, though he talked about “pearls and snails”. So I thought it time for a small lesson in malacology – the study of molluscs.

The phylum Mollusca is one of the great divisions of the Animal Kingdom. It is made up of seven classes. Four of these will be unfamiliar to most: Monoplacophora, Polyplacophora (chitons), Aplacophora and Scaphopoda. The other three classes are well-known: Cephalopoda, Gastropoda and Bivalvia. I have written before about cephalopods and gastropods; the former are cuttlefish, squids and octopuses, the most advanced of the molluscs, and indeed, of all invertebrates. Gastropods are the snails and slugs. Bivalves are those molluscs with two shells, such as mussels and clams. A mussel is no more closely related to a slug than a fish is to an elephant.

Bivalves are probably the least charismatic of the molluscs. You can look an octopus in the eye, and recognise a fellow being. You can do much the same with a snail, though they are not so bright. But most bivalves don’t have eyes, or even heads. Cooking bivalves might not engender the same degree of guilt as, say, watching a lobster struggling in a pan of boiling water, and when served up in a shellfish risotto or as moules marinière, it is easy to forget that they were once living animals. But they were.

There are over 9,000 species of bivalves; most are marine, but a few families have species that live in freshwater. I always found their classification rather difficult and sometimes illogical, based as it was upon internal structures such as gills, muscles and hinges, and before writing this, I had to get out my old invertebrate zoology book and see what I had forgotten. Then, knowing that zoologists (and botanists) keep re-naming and re-classifying things, I looked them up on the internet. Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn’t seem to have mastered bivalve taxonomy either so, for simplicity, I will divide the bivalves into four categories.

Firstly, there are those with muscular feet, two siphons and two identical shells. These are the cockles and clams. We are all familiar with cockles; they live in shallow sand, are easily collected and good to eat. Clams are more variable, and the word can refer to many quite different types of bivalve. There are thousands of species, from tiny ones less than a centimetre wide, living unnoticed in littoral mud, to the giant clams of the Pacific, the largest of all bivalves, which can reach 120 centimetres in width and weigh 200 kilograms. Clams have always been commercially important: the hard-shelled clam, Mercenaria mercenaria, known as the quahog in America, is the main ingredient in clam chowder, and was one of the species used by indigenous Americans to make wampum – ceremonial beads which later became a currency for trade with the Europeans, hence its Latin name.

My second category is made up of bivalves with reduced feet and siphons and sometimes non-identical shells; they usually live on top of the sediments or anchored to rocks. Many are also commercially important. The common mussel grows on every rocky shore around our coasts; thousands of tons of farmed mussels are exported from Ireland every year. The great scallop has many rudimentary eyes and swims by jet propulsion; it is mostly captured by dredging, which is very destructive. The European flat oyster used to be poor man’s food; now it is an expensive treat. Most bivalves can produce pearls of some sort; the best come from Indo-Pacific pearl oysters.

The third group are the burrowing and boring clams. These have very long siphons and much stronger feet that allow them to borrow deeply into sand, wood or rock. Razor shells are so named because they look rather like old fashioned cut-throat razors; try to catch one and its long, muscular foot will pull it downwards at great speed. Then there are the soft-shelled clams or sand gapers; they are large and meaty, and though common on our beaches, are rarely eaten here, but in America are a main ingredient of the New England clam-bake. Their cousin, the geoduck from the Pacific coast of North America, can live for more than 150 years, and has siphons so long, up to a metre, they cannot be retracted into the shell. 

The related piddocks use their shells as rasps to make holes in rocks in which they live. They still look like bivalves, but the shipworms, Teredo, don’t. These have become so modified for boring, they resemble worms, and their greatly reduced shells are used not for protection, but as tools for chiselling away at timber. Unappealing as they look, shipworms are a delicacy in some south-east Asian countries.

Before the invention of antifouling paints and steel ships, Teredo was a menace that destroyed many large vessels. One famous example was HMS ‘Roebuck’, commanded by the explorer, naturalist and pirate William Dampier. Having written a best-selling book about his first circumnavigation of the world, Dampier was commissioned by William lll in 1699 to explore the east coast of New Holland (now Australia). He surveyed western Australia and parts of New Guinea and collected many specimens new to science, but by then the ‘Roebuck’ was so riddled with shipworm the expedition had to be abandoned and the ship sailed homeward. They got as far as Ascension Island, where she sank. So from the mid-18th century, Royal Navy ships had their bottoms sheathed with copper, which kept the shipworms out.

Back in the 1990s, I had my own experience with Teredo. My old wooden boat developed a serious leak, which was eventually tracked down to three shipworms. Their larvae are microscopic and can get into any tiny crack; perhaps my antifouling was insufficient, perhaps they got in before I bought the boat and the surveyor never noticed. Either way, I had to replace three planks.

The last of my four categories contains exclusively freshwater bivalves with parasitic larvae. They all have very short siphons, so can’t live in deep sediments. In Ireland, we have three species: swan and duck mussels which are found in lakes and ponds, and the pearl mussel, Margaritifera margaritifera, which needs clean, fast flowing rivers.

Most bivalves release eggs and sperm into the water; these mix together to produce planktonic larvae which eventually settle back onto the sea or river bed where they grow into adults. Pearl mussels do it a bit differently. The female’s eggs stay inside her and are only fertilised if she inhales sperm from an upstream male. The larvae, up to four million of them, spend two  months developing in a brood pouch before being expelled. To continue their development, they have to meet a salmon or a trout. Most don’t, and are simply washed away down river and eaten by something. A lucky one will find its way into a salmonid’s gills, using its tiny shells as a sort of clamp. There it stays and grows for about eight months, after which it drops off and sinks to the bottom. If it lands in a muddy area, it will die; it has to settle on a gravelly river bed. There it might live for over 200 years, growing to a length of 15 centimetres, while feeding on organic matter filtered from the water.

M. margaritifera is now endangered or extinct in most of Europe, where it was once exploited for its pearls, though it is still fairly common in Ireland and Scotland. But the alarming thing is that few young pearl mussels have settled and survived since the 1960s – most are killed off by pollution, siltation, the dredging and tidying up of rivers, reduction of salmonid numbers (by pollution and overfishing) and smothering by the invasive and unrelated zebra mussels. A subspecies, M. margaritifera durrovensis, evolved to live in the calcareous waters of the Nore, Barrow and Suir; only about a hundred individuals are still alive, all in the Nore.

Pearl mussels might not look very exciting, but I think any creature that lives so long, has such a precarious life cycle, and actually cleans river water (the opposite of what humans do) deserves to be respected and looked after. If humans are affected by flooding, it is because their ever-increasing populations, mindless materialism and ignorance of the natural world – the real world – are destroying ecosystems and changing climates; and, rather obviously, because they build houses in areas prone to flooding. It is humans that are ruining the lives of pearl mussels (and most wild animals), not the other way around.