One could easily mistake the names Francis, Goretti, Harry, Ingrid, and Joseph for the names of a bunch of digital nomads passing through Portugal in recent times. Yet these are the names of storms, or diluvial nomads, which have become regular visitors to Portugal, with varying degrees of impact: more or less gusty and rainy; … Read more
Review: We Must Begin with the Land: Seeking Abundance and Liberation through Social Ecology by Stephen E. Hunt (Zer0 books, 2025) Environmentalists find themselves in the paradoxical situation of living in a golden age of radical ecological thinking – even as our global economic system blasts through one climactic tipping-point after another, more or less … Read more
Let no feeling of vengeance presume to defile The cause of, or men of, the Emerald Isle. From William Drennan’s ‘When Erin First Rose.’ (1795). The intense green colour of much of the landscape of Ireland – the so-called “Emerald Isle” – bears testimony to Garrett Hardin’s assessment that ‘As a rational being, each herdsman … Read more
In 1841 the population of county Leitrim stood at 155,297. By 1901, however, it had fallen to 69,343, dropping further to 41,209 by 1951, before reaching a nadir of just 25,057 in 1996. The 2022 census records a population of 35,087 – a significant increase, but still a staggering 77% reduction on the 1841 figure. … Read more
Jonathan O’Brien of City Kayaking says they began taking litter out of the River Liffey ten years ago. In that time he’s seen a change in the river. City Kayaking was launched in order to offer people access to water activities in Dublin, but in the beginning there was a lot of what we used … Read more
The Stone Age didn’t come to an end because they ran out of stones. Similarly, we should be building an economy where we ‘use’ resources rather than ‘use them up’. The human species must change its profligate ways, and radically reduce the level of extraction required to fuel our needs and desires. The economy is … Read more
Standing outside a Dublin hostelry in the drizzle, I fell into conversation with an Ulsterman who arrived with impeccable republican-socialist credentials. I assumed, this would make him sympathetic to the recently vanquished Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. I breezily opined that the long-serving MP for Islington had been the first post-War Labour leader to challenge a … Read more
It’s easy to despair in the face of our species’ (homo sapiens: ‘wise man’) apparent unwillingness to recognise environmental constraints. The facts of life on planet Earth have been laid bare to most of us by now. We cannot go on consuming as many of us do in the West indefinitely, especially with populations in … Read more
La Soif Du Monde (‘A Thirsty World’) and ‘The Fight for Water: A Farm Worker Struggle’ were two 2012 documentaries based on true stories, anticipating further struggles for water, or lack thereof. Environmentalist Erik Stokstad once remarked that ‘H2O – is there any other molecule so vital, and so problematic, for people? The UN estimates … Read more
it is difficult enough for the fishermen to make a living but because of inaction with seal culls, they are now suffering very seriously … What is needed is to dramatically reduce the amount of seals in our water in the same way as we have to reduce our deer population … There is no … Read more
On April 30th, acting Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed defended Ireland’s agricultural sector,[i] claiming we are the second most food secure country in the world. What Creed seems to have been referring to was an Irish independent article from October 2019, saying Ireland had moved from first place to second in a Global Food Security … Read more
‘We are alive in a time of worst-case scenarios. The world we have inherited seems exhausted, destined for an absolute and final unravelling’. So begins Mark O’Connell’s journey into our ever-darkening future. There are, he notes darkly, fascists in the streets and in the palaces, while around us ‘the weather has gone uncanny, volatile, malevolent’. … Read more
Fifty years ago today, more than twenty million people took to the streets in towns and cities across the U.S. in what was and remains the largest environmental protest in history. On that evening’s news, CBS anchor, Walter Cronkite intoned: “a unique day in American history is ending, a day set aside for a nationwide … Read more
Pressing Pause In the grip of serious illness anyone but an obtuse contrarian seeks medical assistance. As the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic sweeps across the globe, doctors are performing heroics, often at grave risks to their own health. Enhanced screening, testing and emergency treatment facilities, along with developing a vaccine, are now paramount considerations; but we … Read more
The great English chemist James Lovelock conceived the Gaia (Gr. ‘goddess of earth’) Hypothesis in 1972, later developing this alongside American microbiologist Lynns Margulis. Later still, Lovelock, aged eighty-seven, was awarded the prestigious Wolston medal by the Geological Society of London for his pioneering concept. Now firmly embedded in the zeitgeist, the Gaia Hypothesis posits … Read more
Following a global trend since the arrival of the Internet, mainstream Irish media, including the so-called ‘paper of record’ the Irish Times, is increasingly required to sell itself. The days of someone reading a daily newspapers cover-to-cover are fading into nostalgic memories. Now editors feel obliged to dangle click-bait, and even fake news, often through … Read more
Few among the crowds walking down Thomas Street will know there is a hidden garden in the heart of the Liberties. In the past this site served as a car park, and a popular place to shoot up. Later it was bought up and fenced off. Shops and houses, however, had back door access and … Read more
Recent Local and European elections witnessed an electoral Green Tide, especially in Dublin, where Ciaran Cuffe topped the European poll. But this week Dubliners are contending with a Brown Tide, of shit, after overspill from the Ringsend Wastewater Plant. It is far from an isolated example of this government’s environmental negligence. What makes it all … Read more
It was exciting to meet the enthusiasm at the inaugural meeting of Talamh Beo, a grassroots organisation of farmers, growers and land-based workers on the island of Ireland. It aims to ensure a living landscape, where people and ecosystems thrive together. Inspiration comes from the Landworkers’ Alliance (UK), which in the five years of its … Read more
The idea of home is a recurring Irish preoccupation – níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin.[i] This can be traced to a history of Famine dispossession, and a subsequent Land War. The Irish Constitution still commits the State to supporting women as home-makers.[ii] It perhaps explains the vehemence of recent criticism, from across the … Read more
