From Treeless Hills to Emerald Woods

In the rainy mountains along Ireland’s west coast, a group of surfers wants to restore a temperate rainforest ecosystem that has been gone for centuries.

Published by Hakai & WIRED, July 2023

In the stark sheep pastures of Ireland’s Maumturk Mountains, just a few gnarled trees cling to the hillside, twisted and bent by decades facing down the raw Atlantic winds. Now this unlikely landscape, where native woodlands have been gone for almost 1,000 years, is at the heart of a bold plan to bring back long-forgotten rainforests.

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Calling the curlew home

RTÉ Lyric FM, 5 March, 2023

A radio story on the Eurasian curlew and its elemental place in Irish culture

Photo: JANICE MULLIGAN

The environmental philosopher Raymond Rogers says that when we lose a species, we also lose our relationship with it, a phenomenon he describes as a “double disappearance”. My wife Michelle and I have spent much of the past year making this radio documentary on the Eurasian curlew’s special place in Irish songs, stories, poetry and art, asking what happens to human culture when we lose an iconic bird, and what we can do to bring them back from the brink of extinction. You can listen here, or search for ‘The Lyric Feature’ wherever you get your podcasts, and search for the episode of 5 March 2023.

The Lyric Feature: Ireland's Changing Nature

Three-part radio documentary on how nature and culture have shaped the Irish landscape

RTÉ Lyric FM, Spring 2021

I served as researcher on this three-part documentary series, broadcast on RTÉ Lyric FM, which looks at the changing relationship between people and nature through time in Ireland, and asks how we might shape the future of the natural world. The series was produced and presented by Anja Murray.

You can listen to the three episodes at the links below, or search for ‘The Lyric Feature’ wherever you get your podcasts, and scroll to March/April 2021.

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

In the ghost wood

A short essay on Ireland’s lost forests, and their ghostly inhabitants

Orion magazine, Spring 2021

THE DAY IS COLD and bright as I walk up the quiet road through small wet fields edged with hawthorn and gorse bushes. The sky is ice blue; behind me, the road slopes down to the bay, whose green water moves with the quality of mercury, slow and heavy. It is early February in the west of Ireland, and there is the faintest warmth on the sea breeze coming over the bogs. But this is only a lull: winter storms will soon come back with fury.

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The Lyric Feature: Wild

A deep-time audio journey across the Irish landscape

RTÉ Lyric FM, October 2020

I served as co-producer, with Anja Murray, of this one-hour radio documentary exploring the past and present of nature in Ireland — and peering into its imagined future. Broadcast by The Lyric Feature on RTÉ Lyric FM, you can listen here or search for The Lyric Feature wherever you get your podcasts. The programme was broadcast on October 11 2020.