Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda
One of the themes I have found emerging from my project of blogging about species extinct in Ireland since human habitation is how hidden much of this biodiversity loss is.…
Recited passages used to be common in popular music. For instance, Elvis’ musings in the bridge of Are You Lonesome Tonight?: I wonder if you’re lonesome tonight You know someone…
It’s a while since I posted a Blogging the Octonauts post (here is another one). To recap, the Octonauts is a children’s TV show based on the rather more whimsical…
Readers may have recently seen news that the Brave browser has jointly filed complaints against Google relating to their sharing of personal data. Recently I posted a link to NIthin…
OK, this entry in my September series of species rendered extinct in Ireland since human settlement here may cause many readers to do a double-take. The red squirrel? Extinct? But…
From Pádraic Fogarty‘s Whittled Away: Woodlark Formerly common along the Eastern counties, it had disappeared as a breeding bird by the start of the twentieth century. Gerald Manley Hopkins attempted…
From Pádraic Fogarty’s Whittled Away: Spotted crake Probably common up to the mid-nineteenth century, there was a record of them breeding on the once extensive marshes around Dundalk, Co. Louth,…
From Pádraic Fogarty’s Whittled Away: Osprey Breeding in inland lakes including Lough Key in Roscommon in 1779 but no records thereafter, save for the odd vagrant. Given its relatively abundant…
Séamus Sweeney 