Blog

Pádraic Fogarty is an ecologist, environmental campaigner, and author. (An ecologist is a person who studies how animals and plants relate to each other, their environment and the rest of nature.) His book ‘Whittled Away – Ireland’s Vanishing Nature’ was published in 2017. He is very passionate about helping Ireland’s trees and was kind enough […]

I recently had the privilege of meeting Sean O’Farrell, organic farmer, on his farm, Cloncannon Biofarm, in the shadows of the Devil’s Bit mountains in Co. Tipperary. Cloncannon is 60 acres of land with cows, pigs, donkeys geese and chickens and Sean uses no artificial fertilisers, herbicides or pesticides. He manages his farm hedgerows for […]

When we sent our Open letter to our local councillors and to the Oireachtas earlier this year, two of the responses we received were from Eamon Ryan (leader of the Green Party) and Pauline O’Reilly, Green Party County Councillor for Galway City. We were then invited to a stakeholders meeting this summer, which they both […]

Recently my family and I went to a bat conservation event in the grounds of Birr Castle, Co. Offaly. My brother and myself, our friend Jane and others, arrived at the octagonal pavilion near the lake. We sat down and waited for the talk to begin. We already knew, because we had been on a […]

We met with Minister of State for Natural Resources Seán Canney, Galway County Councillor Grealdine Donohue and Senator Victor Boyhan, this summer in Woodville Walled Gardens. We explained the importance of trees and discussed our project ideas. We have been invited to present our projects at a full meeting of Galway County Council in the […]

By Leela (aged 11). Five years ago, my family and I moved to a cottage on a couple of acres, in County Galway. The land was little more than a tangle of brambles, neglected hedges, dock plants and cow-trampled mud. There was very little other wildlife. A couple of weeks ago we planted our thousandth […]