Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda
Continuing a month of postings on species extinct in Ireland since the coming of humans, the first insect of this series and a moth last found in Clonmel – the barberry…
My rather melancholy September project continues. Another bird today, this time the bittern. From “Whittled Away”: Eaten in Medieval times, it nested in undisturbed wetlands until the mid 1800s. Winter…
Extinct in Ireland continues! From Padraic Fogarty’s “Whittled Away” Wolf: Widespread and probably abundant in Ireland until a concerted extermination programme finished off the last one in the late 1700s. I…
I’ve been reading Pádraic Fogarty’s “Whittled Away: Ireland’s Vanishing Nature”. It’s a sobering read, puncturing the fond illusion that many Irish have that their homeland is some kind of environmental paradise,…
Séamus Sweeney 