This month, branch Chair, Jez Simms, describes how some Egret species began to visit Ireland regularly, one species even breeding here now.

It was not until the latter half of the last century that birders in Ireland began to regularly encounter a beautiful pure white heron known throughout Europe and Africa as the Little Egret. A bird so beautiful it was nearly wiped out in Europe in the 1800s due to the great demand for its breeding plumes to make ladies hats. The campaign to save the bird led to the formation of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in 1889, now the largest bird conservation group in Europe with over a million members.

A rarity in Ireland up to the late seventies, the first ever Little Egret was recorded in County Cork in 1940, more and more kept arriving until they were finally confirmed as a breeding species in 1997 at Fota in Co. Cork. Nowadays these beautiful birds can be seen gracing most waterways, lakes and coastal areas in the country with a population, including wintering birds; of approximately 1,500 birds with a breeding population of around 500 pairs.

The next Egret to start regularly visiting Ireland is the Cattle Egret, slightly smaller and less elegant than the Little Egret, these birds are not exclusive to water margins but, as their name suggests, like to roam amongst cattle and other herbivores in quest of the flies and other insects they attract, returning to water margins to roost and sometimes hunt. The first one recorded in Ireland was at Kilkeran Lake in West Cork on March 7, 1976, and then there were only around 10 more records between then and 2006. In 2007 there was a massive influx of Cattle Egrets during the winter with around 80 birds arriving along the south and west coasts, forever changing its status in Ireland. It is now a regular late Autumn and Winter visitor to our shore with flocks of birds into the high twenties sometimes occurring here in West Cork.

But that’s not all folks, back in 1986 Ireland’s first ever Great White Egret was found in Cobh; this was a very early sign of another major Egret expansion with a big influx starting in the 2000s. They first bred in the UK in 2012 and are now well established in Ireland, particularly in Co. Cork. They can often be seen on wetlands and marshes; breeding is suspected but not confirmed yet. These are magnificent birds, pure white and the size of our Grey Heron, with a distinctive long yellowish bill, unlike the black bill of the Little Egret, so they are hard to miss. They are almost resident at the Gearagh Nature Reserve near Macroom, with numbers sometimes building into double figures in the Autumn and Winter. At White’s Marsh near Clonakilty, I have seen all three of our Egrets feeding together.

While not a true Egret, there is another bird which might be showing signs of following them, this is the mega rare Squacco Heron. It is Egret-like in flight with its pure white wings, but when in reeds or in foliage its beautiful buff and brown plumage can make it hard to spot. In recent years the odd one has shown up in Ireland and this year an unprecedented three have been seen with quite a few in the UK as well, so maybe they are following a similar pattern. So, check your field guides and bird apps and keep an eye out for all these truly beautiful birds.

BirdWatch Ireland West Cork Branch News

Our next events are:

July 12: Nature walk on Whiddy Island.

August 9: Timoleague Educational Garden.

Visit our website www.birdwatchirelandwestcork.ie for more information about these events. To receive news and reminders about our events join our mailing list by sending an email to mailinglist@birdwatchirelandwestcork.ie.

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The illegal wildlife trade is the second biggest international crime after drug smuggling, but one hears about it less often. Personally, I think that wildlife smugglers should be punished far more harshly than drug dealers – after all, if someone wants to inject himself with heroin or addle his brain with cannabis, that is his own business, and there is an infinite quantity of such drugs available, but the smuggled animal has done nothing to deserve its horrid fate, and one day its kind will probably be extinct.

Hundreds of animal species are traded illegally, many for spurious Chinese medicine, some for meat, others to become exotic pets for wealthy fools who know little about them. While most people are aware of the slaughter of elephants, rhinos and pangolins for their body parts, it might be surprising to learn that there is also a thriving illegal trade in insects, e.g. rhinoceros beetles into Japan, praying mantises into the USA, butterflies out of Sri Lanka.           

Recently, criminals have been caught trying to smuggle thousands of ants out of Kenya. The particular species were harvester ants, which are popular with collectors because the queens are so big – up to 25 mm in length. On the black market, a single queen ant can make €200. One smuggler, a Chinese national, was caught with 2,000 queens, each caged in a little plastic tube. The same man was apparently behind a similar smuggling operation a year ago, when three foreigners and a Kenyan were caught with 5,540 queen ants; they were each fined just $7,700.

Harvester ants are seed-eaters, and while they carry seeds back to their nest, they invariably drop some, thus helping dispersal. There are many millions of ants in one nest, but only one queen, without whom the colony cannot function, so the collection of queens on such an industrial scale could seriously endanger their survival, as well as upset the local ecology.

Ants belong to the order Hymenoptera, which also includes sawflies, bees and wasps. Ants have been found preserved in amber dating back to the Cretaceous period, when the dinosaurs were still ruling the planet. They are social insects – there are no solitary ant species – and like social bees, they have different castes: queens, males and sterile workers. There are sub-divisions of workers too, such as nurse maids, foragers and soldiers. Ants resemble termites in some ways, and termites are often called ‘white ants’, but they are not at all related. Worldwide, there are over 13,000 described ant species, and no doubt many thousands more; 20 species live in Ireland. Being so small, ants are frequently overlooked, and are often considered pests; they certainly can be in the tropics – leave any food uncovered, and you will soon have battalions of ants marching away with it. But ants are not only important ecologically, they are also fascinating little creatures.

The Sahara silver ant is the second fastest insect, after the Australian tiger beetle. It has been recorded at 3.1 kph which, relative to body size, corresponds to a human running at 720 kph. The reason for the ant’s swiftness is its habitat – it lives in the Sahara Desert, and has to find food quickly before the mid-day sun becomes too hot – 53 degrees kills them. To minimise the effects of heat on their feet, they use only four legs for running, the first pair being raised like arms.

Leaf-cutter ants live in Central and South America. They spend their lives cutting pieces of leaves and carrying them, like large green sails, back to their nests. Each ant can carry a piece of leaf 50 times its own body weight. The leaves are used to nourish a fungus, which is then fed to the ant larvae; different species of leaf-cutter ants use different species of fungus. The adult ants feed on leaf sap.

Many insects store nectar and other sugary liquids in special compartments within their nests – honey bees of course make honeycombs. But honeypot ants use their own bodies to store food. Special types of workers, called repletes, are fed by other workers until their bodies become so swollen with honey that they can no longer move, and they form a sort of living wine cellar. When other ants are thirsty, they tickle the repletes with their antennae until honey is regurgitated. There are many species of honeypot ants in the tropics; Australian Aborigines eat them.

Ants defend themselves in three ways: they can bite, sting or spray formic acid (the name of the ant family is Formicidae). The stings of some species can be painful or even fatal to humans. The bullet ant of tropical America is said to have the most painful sting of any animal. The jack jumper ant from Australia can be fatal to those allergic to ant stings.

Most invasive animals and plants cause problems. Ants, being so small and industrious, are very likely to escape from captivity and wreak havoc. One famous example is what happened on Christmas Island, a tiny Australian territory in the Indian Ocean renowned for its red crabs. These brightly coloured crustaceans live for most of the year in forests, but like all crabs, they must return to the sea to spawn. They do this in unbelievable numbers, marching across roads, getting squashed by cars, puncturing tyres and causing accidents. Once considered pests themselves, the islanders have come to appreciate these crabs; park rangers now help them across the roads, special underpasses have been built for them, and locals drive more carefully. After spawning, the crabs return to their forests, and later, the juveniles follow them from the sea.

Unfortunately, yellow crazy ants, a particularly aggressive species that forms immense super-colonies, were introduced onto Christmas Island in the early 20th century. The ants evict the crabs from their burrows, and eat them; they have killed 10-15 million crabs, perhaps a third of the population. This has changed the ecology of the island, because the plants that the crabs used to eat have now started to take over areas of forest.

I had an alarming experience with red driver ants when I lived in Zambia. I saw them occasionally on the walk to school, and then one day a sticky mass of them appeared in my little garden pond, as the ants made a living bridge to get across it. I just thought that was rather interesting – until they invaded the house.

My maid screamed out: ‘Mpashi!’ [their name in Bemba]. ‘They will eat us!’ The whole veranda seemed to be alive, crawling and crackling, the outside wall covered by millions of ants. We shut the doors and windows, but soon the ants were pouring into the lounge through a hole in the wall. If I had been asleep, they would indeed have started to devour me.

I like and respect ants, but those ones had to go. We filled up buckets of hot water and washed them all into the garden where the birds had a feast.

There are about 60 species of driver ants in Africa; they are called siafu in Swahili. The ones in my garden were probably Dorylus helvolus, but I wasn’t thinking too much about positive identification at the time. They usually live in gigantic underground nests, but when food runs out, they set off in columns, up to 50 million strong. The workers are small, and march in the centre of the column, with the large and very pugnacious soldiers, who have square heads and big jaws, on either side; all are coloured a dark reddish brown. If one is careless when out walking and gets too close to a marching line of these ants, the soldiers will soon be up your legs and biting badly. The Maasai use them as sutures to heal cuts, because once their jaws clamp down, they don’t ever let go. The queens of this species are huge, up to five centimetres long; the clumsy winged males, which are attracted to lights and often crash-land in one’s evening whisky, are not much smaller, and are known as sausage flies.

Globally, most insect species are declining, because of pesticides, climate change, urbanisation, and all of you who insist on mowing your lawns every time the sun comes out. Illegal trading will only make things worse. Few people care much about insects, even though they are by far the most important animals on the planet. Many will not survive. But ants will. One day, when human overpopulation, unnecessary technology and idiotic consumerism render the Earth uninhabitable for higher animals, the ants, with their organisation and vast numbers, will still be here. 

In Italy, a Dublin Bay prawn is a scampo (plural scampi). Here in the 1970s, scampi tails with chips became a popular dish, but it was not cheap, so sometimes restaurants used substitutes such as monkfish. At the time, monkfish was thought too hideous and unfamiliar for our tastes, but cut into small prawn-shaped pieces and deep-fried, it could be served up, dishonestly, as scampi. No restaurateur would do that today, because their customers have learned that monkfish itself is delicious too.

But what exactly is a monkfish? The word is as ambiguous as prawn. In Alwyne Wheeler’s definitive Key to the Fishes of Northern Europe, the monkfish is Squatina squatina, an angel shark; it was the same in the Irish Specimen Fish Committee’s annual report. But in a restaurant or at the fishmonger’s, a monkfish is Lophius piscatorius, the anglerfish, something completely different.

The monastic connection goes back to 1546 when a creature called a ‘sea monk’ was captured in the Øresund, that narrow stretch of water between Sweden and Denmark. The sea monk was said to be a fish that resembled a monk dressed in his religious habit. It appeared in several serious scientific books of the time; those of Guillaume Rondelet in 1554 and Pierre Belon in 1555 both had, among relatively accurate drawings of fish and other marine animals, pictures of a beast with scaly tunic, spiky limbs and the tonsured head of a monk. It was thought by some to be either a badly-drawn giant squid, a merman or perhaps a Jenny Haniver – one of those fanciful creatures that sailors used to construct out of various dried animals. Renaissance academics were still inclined to believe in sea monsters – Rondelet’s book also has a drawing of a ‘sea bishop’, which had a vaguely human torso and head (plus bishop’s mitre) all covered in scales, but bare legs, like those of an ostrich.

Rondelet and Belon both knew the difference between the sea monk, the angel shark and the anglerfish. They called the angel shark Squatina (the name used by Linnaeus over 200 years later); Belon also named it ‘angelot de mer’, or angel of the sea – the large pectoral fins of the fish could be said to resemble angelic wings. The anglerfish, he called ‘grenouille de mer’ (sea frog) and ‘diable de mer’ (sea devil), both names applied today to certain types of anglerfish.

An angel shark does, with a little imagination, resemble a cowled monk, an anglerfish really doesn’t, so quite why and when sea monk, angel shark and anglerfish became conflated, I don’t know.

The anglerfish order, Lophiiformes, is made up of fifteen families, including the common anglerfish, the batfish, the frogfish and the truly bizarre deep-water anglerfish. There are hundreds of species. They are so named because of their method of catching prey – they all have a fishing rod, actually modified dorsal fin rays, the first of which has a fleshy knob, the lure, at its end. They are unique among bony fish in having their gill openings behind their pectoral fins instead of in front; also, they have depressible teeth, extensible stomachs, and no scales.

In Irish waters we have two species – the common anglerfish, Lophius piscatorius, and the smaller and rarer black-bellied anglerfish, L. budegassa, though other species live in very deep water. If you order monkfish in a restaurant here, it is the common anglerfish that you will be eating. It is very ugly; most of its body seems to be head, and its enormous mouth is armed with sharp, backward pointing teeth. For this reason, you will usually see only the tail on a fishmonger’s slab. It is found from shallow water down to 600 metres or more, where it lies buried in sand or gravel, waving the fishing rod in front of its jaws to entice a potential meal. When a fish approaches, thinking the lure is something edible, the angler opens its huge mouth, and the smaller fish quickly becomes the prey instead. Anglerfish eat all kinds of bottom-dwelling species and anything else they can catch, even rising to the surface to take sea birds.

Other members of the order are still uglier, and some quite extraordinary. The many species of frogfish include the Sargassum fish, a small angler which is camouflaged to resemble the clumps of Sargassum weed in which it floats in tropical seas. The batfish have their pelvic fins modified into leg-like structures with which they can walk on the sea bed. The weirdest of all the anglerfish, however, are the deep-sea species; some are quite terrifying to look at. The names of the different families give clues as to their grotesque appearances: football fish, whip-nosed anglers, wolf-trap anglers, black sea devils, warty sea devils. They are the fish of nightmares.

Deep-sea anglerfish live in mid-water, down to depths of 3,000 metres, where there is no light. So they have two big problems – finding food and finding a mate. They solve the first difficulty by having a lamp on the end of their fishing rod; the bioluminescence is produced by bacteria. Other fish see something shining in the dark, they swim closer to investigate, the huge open mouth snaps shut and the backward pointing teeth ensure no escape. As food is so scarce in their bathypelagic habitat, they must be able to swallow whatever they find, hence their enormously stretchable stomachs.

Reproduction is even stranger. They lay millions of eggs which hatch into planktonic larvae. The female grows normally, but the male becomes a dwarf with special biting jaws and no fishing rod. When he finds a female, guided by her luminous lure, he bites into her skin, and there he stays. In some species, their body tissues actually fuse, and the male becomes a parasite, getting his nutrients from the female’s blood, and releasing sperm whenever she wants to reproduce. Sometimes, one female will have several parasitic males attached. Males who never find a female will die because they can’t fish for themselves. The warty sea devil, Ceratias holboeli, is one of the largest species; the female grows up to 120 cm, but the male is never more than 6 cm long.

The other fish called monkfish – the angel sharks – also have flattened bodies for life on the sea bed, but that is really the only similarity to anglerfish. Being sharks, they have cartilaginous skeletons – no bones. Their gills open to the exterior via five slits on either side of the head, and their skin is covered in dermal denticles, like tiny teeth, which give all sharks their rough feel, as any fisherman will know who has been grazed by a dogfish. They live in relatively shallow waters, lying concealed in sand or mud until an unsuspecting fish passes by, and then the shark lunges up and grabs it.

There are 26 species of angel shark, all in the genus Squatina. Many of them are in trouble because of fishing, deliberately or as by-catch; the three species found in the eastern Atlantic, including S. squatina, the common angel shark, are all critically endangered. S. squatina was once plentiful in Ireland, and frequently caught by human anglers, especially in places such as Tralee Bay and Clew Bay. In the 1970s, like flapper skate and blue sharks, they were all killed, just for fun and photographs, and dumped back in the sea – there was no market for their meat here. But then anglers began tagging them, and they might have been all right but for the introduction of the tangle net. These death traps, set primarily for crayfish, also catch anything that swims into them, including angel sharks.

Much of the angel shark’s territory in Kerry is a designated national park, and last year Tralee Bay was declared an ‘important shark and ray area’ by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, yet fishermen still use tangle nets in these places. Ireland is one of the last refuges of the common angel shark, a fish whose ancestors swam in Jurassic seas and outlived the dinosaurs. What an absolute disgrace it would be if, whether due to politics, economics, or because the government just didn’t care, this shark was to become extinct.

This month, branch committee member Andrea Reichstein travels up to Rathlin Island, off the northern coast of County Antrim in Northern Ireland, to experience its birdlife and so much more.

After visiting Cape Clear for the very enjoyable week-long ‘Seabirds to Songbirds’ course held by Dick Coombes for Birdwatch Ireland two years ago, I once again felt drawn to visit one of Ireland’s many stunning islands. This year I decided to travel across Ireland to Rathlin island. It is a fairly epic journey, especially if done by public transport, which gives an added sense of adventure and the feel of travelling somewhere very exotic.

I went for a week at the end of April and was extremely lucky with the weather; the sun was splitting the rocks every day and it was very difficult to eventually leave this paradise.

Similar to Cape Clear, Rathlin is a great place for bird and nature lovers: Cape Clear has the bird observatory and Rathlin has the RSPB Rathlin West Light Seabird Centre – both are great for walking and exploring. But be warned, do not bring along someone who is a fan of quick walks; they won’t like it, as you will be stopping constantly – there is just so much to see and watch.

It is difficult to pick my highlights of the stay, but the following are definitely some. On my first morning, walking the ca 7km Rathlin Island Trail up to the seabird centre (there is also a bus, aptly named Puffin bus running between the ferry and the centre), I was perhaps 1km away from the centre when I spotted a massive bird. It came out of nowhere, flying low overhead, chased by crows. This was my very first sighting of a (juvenile) white-tailed eagle and it was something else! I was amazed to see such a big and powerful bird being chased by crows. I learned that juveniles do pass through, either from Scotland or the south of Ireland, but so far none of them have ever settled here. Hopefully this one has made its home here, as by the time I left, it had stayed around for five days, so maybe!

I decided to do the Kebble South Trail on the day I was due to leave the island. It’s a beautiful walk along the cliffs with great views onto some more cliffs where seabirds perch and you can look down on seals in the water below. I spotted two birds in the distance perched on a rock. At first glance, they looked a bit like gulls but then I realised that I was looking at Northern Ireland’s only breeding pair of great skuas! I had a few more encounters with them. From all directions, I could see them sitting on their elevated stone and they treated me with some flyovers, displaying their beautiful wing markings.

Rathlin is of course famous for the Golden Hare with its blonde fur and blue eyes, which is a result of a gene defect and only occurs on Rathlin island. There are only a handful of them born each year, out of 600-800 hares in total. So, if you love hares, you will love Rathlin. Throughout my visit, I kept a close eye out for the elusive golden hare. I saw plenty of hares, some noticeably brighter than others, but I was never quite sure whether I had actually found one. When I mentioned this to locals, they all gave the same response: if you see a golden hare, you’ll know it.

On my last evening I headed out onto the Ballyconaghan Trail, which numerous sources had told me is the best spot to spot one. That evening, with the sun hanging low in the sky, I turned a corner and saw them: two hares. One was a typical Irish hare, but the other was unmistakably a golden hare. The moment I saw it, I knew. I could hardly believe my luck. Its coat was a striking blend of pale blonde and white, and its vivid blue eyes made it look truly magnificent.

Then there were the seabirds. During the first two days of my stay, the cliffs around the seabird centre were teeming with life. Every available rock face seemed to be occupied by guillemots, while ledges were packed with razorbills, fulmars, kittiwakes and, of course, puffins. The sheer volume of birds was incredible, and the constant chorus of calls created an unforgettable atmosphere.

I had expected the colonies to come with a strong smell, but there was surprisingly little scent at all. Perhaps I had arrived early enough in the season to avoid it – I suspect things will be very different later in the summer.

As the week went on fewer and fewer birds were on the cliffs and it fell almost silent. Some visitors to the centre did not see a puffin so they were understandably disappointed.

Therefore, my top tip is this: don’t just visit Rathlin for the day. Stay for several nights, visit the seabird centre more than once, and take time to explore the rest of the island. There are several stunning walks and, even after five days on Rathlin, I didn’t feel that I had seen everything – or heard everything. Unfortunately, I was too early for the corncrake, or perhaps the corncrake was late; either way, we missed each other.

But the puffins! It is a joy simply to watch them. Even when they are not doing very much, they are somehow endlessly entertaining, whether waddling seemingly aimlessly about or trying to pull up vegetation, only to discover they are not quite strong enough and becoming visibly frustrated.

The seabird centre is also an excellent spot for watching whales, dolphins and other marine life. While I didn’t see any myself, several pods of dolphins had been spotted passing by in the week before my stay. I did, however, see seals, including both grey and harbour seals.

Rathlin Harbour is home to plenty of eider ducks, which were a real treat for me, especially because of their unusual and distinctive calls. They sound as though they have just heard a particularly juicy piece of gossip! It was to this sound that I fell asleep each night, and I have to say it has become one of my favourite bird calls.

I will definitely be back, not only to Rathlin, but also for a few days on Cape Clear.

BirdWatch Ireland
West Cork Branch News

Our next event is:

June 6 – Courtmacsherry Community Biodiversity Action Plan walk

June 24 – Swift walk in Clonakilty

Visit our website www.birdwatchirelandwestcork.ie for more information about these events. To receive news and reminders about our events join our mailing list by sending an email to mailinglist@birdwatchirelandwestcork.ie.

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When I was young, I recall being intrigued by a poster in the Post Office warning farmers that they could be prosecuted for having noxious weeds growing on their land. The full list I have forgotten but it certainly included ragwort, dock and, I think, thistle. We are constantly trying to eliminate weeds from our gardens. Sometimes I find this hard to do because these so-called weeds are often beautiful and were once used widely in folk medicine and for other uses.

Ragwort, with its bright yellow, daisy-like flowers and toxic leaves, was regarded as a fairy plant to be treated with caution. It is known in Irish as Buachalán Buí, with alternative names such as Balcaiseán, Bóthanán, Buafalán, Gaosadán, Coiseog Bhuí and Las San Séan (Plant of St James). In English it has several alternative names including Bohalawn, Fairy Horse, James’ Weed, Ragged Jack, Staggerwort, Yellow Boy, etc.

In ancient Ireland it was believed that ragwort was used like a horse by the fairies to ride around on. Their favourite time for doing this was Hallowe’en and many stories tell of unfortunate people abducted and forced to ride around with them all night, only to wake the next morning exhausted, clutching the ragwort in their hands. However, the fairies could also be more generous. A well-known folktale relates how a fairy host takes a man with them on a magical journey. They give him a special cap and tell him to mount a ragwort as if it were a horse. He finds himself flying through the air and landing in a wine cellar in a foreign country. There he drinks his fill, but the next morning he finds himself alone and is then arrested for breaking into the wine cellar. He is sentenced to be hanged, but before the rope can be put around his neck, he manages to reach into his pocket and put on his fairy cap. He is lifted up into the air and brought back home, to be left standing beside the ragwort at the very spot where he first met the fairies. An old song describes the fairy ride: ‘Is gur shiúil mé na cúig cúigí; Is gan fúm act buachallán buí’ (And I travelled through all the provinces with nothing under me but the ragwort). A Sligo saying reflected the caution generally shown in Ireland towards ragwort: ‘Don’t call it a weed, though a weed it may be, ’tis the horse of the fairies, the booholaun buidhe’.

In the Scottish highlands, it was said that the fairies sheltered beside the ragwort on stormy nights, and also rode astride it on their journeys in the Hebrides, from island to island. Witches and warlocks were also believed to ride around on ragwort stems, as well as the more usual broom. A poem by Robbie Burns describes the devil and his witches and warlocks riding together: ‘Let warlocks grim, an’ wither’d hags / Tell how wi’ you on ragweed nags / They skim the muir (moors) an’ dizzy crags / Wi’ wicked speed.’ In Scotland, after the battle of Culloden, the victorious English are said to have named the garden flower ‘Sweet William’ in honour of their leader, William, Duke of Cumberland. The defeated Scots (who were massacred cruelly by the English) retaliated by giving ragwort the name ‘Stinking Billy’. Alternatively, the Scots maintained that the spread of ragwort throughout Scotland was due to the rampage across the land by the Duke of Cumberland’s troops during the Culloden campaign. Ragwort is the national emblem of the Isle of Man, perhaps because of the island’s nickname, ‘Ynn Ellan Shiant (The Fairy Isle).

Ragwort’s association with the fairies was believed to give it other magical properties. A Donegal folktale tells of a man with fairy power who used to turn a bunch of ragwort into the form of a pig. The man brought the ‘pig’ to a fair and sold it, but as the unfortunate buyer was driving it home, he crossed running water and the ‘pig’ instantly turned back into a bunch of ragwort. In places it was believed to be bad luck to strike a cow with the flowers of ragwort because it meant the ‘wee folk’ would be sure to come and steal the cow’s milk.

Ragwort was called the ‘herba Sancti Jacobi’ (the herb of Saint James) whose feast day is July 25 when the ragwort is in full bloom. Interestingly, in view of the ragwort’s role as a ‘fairy steed’, St James is said to be the patron saint of horses.

Ragwort is despised by farmers because its leaves are toxic to livestock. Despite this, ragwort features in several Irish cures. The leaves were used in many places as the basis for poultices and the juice was used for curing cuts, sores and inflammation, including burns, scalds and boils. Perhaps because of its yellow colour, ragwort was also considered as an effective cure for jaundice. Ragwort was also used for treating coughs, colds, sore throats, rheumatism and sore joints. In West Cork, ragwort was used to make brooms and brushes for sweeping the house. In Scotland and Ulster ragwort was put in with oats when they were stored to keep mice away.

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:
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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.