Seán Ronayne: Do we have enough safe hands to save Irish nature?

A 5am shoulder-shake from Alba saw us cancel our day of interviews and signings, and instead we found ourselves in a taxi darting to the National Maternity Hospital. So, she was born in Dublin, and not the People’s Republic of Cork I had hoped for. I say this with tongue firmly in cheek, of course.

We are all home in Cork now — and our lives are changed forever in the most beautiful of ways. Today I finally ventured out for a longer walk with our dog Toby, whilst Alba put her head down.

I went to a local wood in my hometown of Cobh, and it was just what was needed. The gorgeous reds, yellows and oranges of an autumnal canopy glistened and shone a kaleidoscopic conglomeration of warm tones at our feet. Goldcrests, our smallest bird, darted and emitted their almost too-high-to-hear zitting little calls as they flew frantically from leaf to leaf, gleaning the many insects taking advantage of the unseasonal sunny, calm conditions. Jays screeched from the corners of their beaks with sweet chestnuts firmly grasped between mandibles — presumably planning to stash them ahead of the harsher winter weather to come. A treecreeper meandered its way up the gnarled bark of a great big oak, like a mouse creeping up the trunk, calling as it went — sounding like a referee’s whistle.

Generations past and new life

We slowly wound our way down the leaf-strewn tracks towards the sheltered beach at the foot of the wood. The tide was out. Like I’d done for many years, I found a quiet spot and sat myself down in the rounded sandstone pebbles. My Dad introduced me to this spot as a little boy and we too would bring our family dogs for a stroll. His father did the same with him, and nature was always at the core of these outings.

I sat there with Toby by my side, finally taking a gasp of fresh air, the reality of my life change only now having the breathing room to sink in. It was one of the calmest days I’d experienced in a very long time, both in a metaphorical and a literal sense. Not a wisp of wind blew over the expansive Cork Harbour stretching out before us.

I smiled thinking about Laia as I pictured bringing her here and showing her everything my father showed me. The varied yellows, purples, and reds of dainty little periwinkles visible on the rocks at low tide. The gleaming white little egrets that flew upstream to breed and roost in the trees. The sudden great flashes of silver beneath the surface of the racing tide... the only giveaway of stealthy bass below — like Irish barracudas: beautiful skilled marine predators of our coastlines.

Deadly 'message in a bottle'

But this idyllic world I'm describing has a darker shadow over it. On the shoreline in front of me a piece of white plastic with wording on it catches my eye, as it peeks from beneath brown, shining bladderwrack — a species of seaweed common along Irish shores. I’d found two different messages in bottles along this shoreline in years gone by. This message was less a whimsical greeting and more a slap in the face, and a call to arms. Not that I needed one. But now I have Laia to think about.

This message was a label for a powerful ‘biocide’, intended to kill and remove mosses, algae, and lichens from surfaces. The term biocide is enough in itself to inform us of the intentions — a killer of biological life. Further down the label is information that it's “very toxic to aquatic life”.

Here I was sitting along the shoreline of the Cork Harbour Special Protection Area, as designated under EU law, and although this label isn’t direct evidence of such a chemical entering the waters here, it doesn’t need to be. Our country is doused in such biocides on a daily basis. Just hours before, passing through my neighbourhood, I witnessed weedkiller poured all along hundreds of metres of a grassy verge, for fear of any ‘messy’ wildflowers appearing.

All of this made me think. I want a future for my daughter. I want a healthy, nature-filled Ireland, with clean water, and a plethora of wild creatures to stir her imagination and fill her heart and mind with curiosity, love, and awe. I’ve always done my best for nature, but now I have more reason than ever to really fight.

I am fully aware that nobody wants to hear doom and gloom, but it can't be avoided. Not in a world where 73% of monitored wildlife has disappeared since 1970, not in a country where 63% of its birds are at some level of extinction risk, or where the lowest level of native woodland in Europe occurs. Because this is where we are at.

What will it take to see improvement?

And it isn’t going to get any better if people like me, with a privileged platform, smile and pretend to the nation that everything is ok. Because it’s not. What I can say is that we need to make large landscape-level changes.

• We need to get cars off the road, and stop investing huge money in useless lanes and roundabouts. We need to invest this money in public transport, invest in safe laneways for bikes and pedestrians.
• We need to make our farming practices more nature-friendly, no excuses.
• We need to make our national parks places of verdant wildness, brimming with wildlife and goodness.
• We need to stop our semi-state bodies abusing vast tracts of public lands, in the name of profit and ‘progress’.
• We need to ban toxic weedkillers, we need to ban sales of harmful invasive plants.
• We just need to do the right thing by Irish nature, and understand that we, as a species cannot keep taking from the land as if we were the only inhabitants. It will give, eventually.

We owe it to future generations to make these changes. Nature cannot keep slipping away. Where will it end? And how long do you think we will last without it?

Hope springs...

I never intended to find the voice I have found, but now that I have, I am more than here to speak for nature. And there isn’t just me — there are many just like me, and this gives me great hope. Although I see great harm on my days spent out in Irish nature, I have also seen great lifeboats of positivity that I cling to dearly.

Aside from the many great outspoken advocates for Irish nature, several successful conservation projects have shown me that wildlife can bounce back when the right measures are put in place. Take corncrake for example — their national population hit the highest number in a quarter of a century in 2024, thanks to the corncrake LIFE project. We need more of this, and we need it now. Let’s not allow 63% to reach 70%. Let’s stamp on its head and allow birds back in. There is still great beauty to be cherished in this country. There’s still lot’s to celebrate, but we need to save it, and we need to amplify it. And we can.

• Seán Ronayne's book, Nature Boy, is shortlisted for biography of the year and you can vote for it here