PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Eoghan Daltun is a sculpture conservator, a farmer and, above all, a rewilder. Reared in Dublin, he has travelled widely, as well as living abroad in London, Paris and Prague. He spent seven years studying sculpture in Carrara, Tuscany. In 2009, he sold the cottage in Kilmainham he had rebuilt mostly single-handed from a ruin - dating back to at least the 1750s - using the original stone. The proceeds went to buy a long-abandoned 73-acre farm overlooking the Atlantic near Eyeries on the Beara Peninsula, West Cork. Much of the land was covered in wild native forest which, although very beautiful, was ecologically wrecked by severe overgrazing and invasion by a host of alien plant species. Over the years since, Eoghan has brought life in all its explosive vibrancy back to the land, with new temperate rainforest spontaneously forming where previously there was only barren grass. Restoring such an incredibly rich ecosystem has taken him on a fantastic journey of discovery, lifting a curtain to reveal a whole universe of wonders beyond. Rewilding most of the land, and High Nature Value farming the rest, there has been plenty of time to reflect deeply on the ecological crisis unfolding at terrifying speed all around us, and its solutions. He lives on the farm with his two sons Liam and Seanie, their collie dog Charlie, and five Dexter cows: Maggie, Gertrude, Amber, Nelly and Minnie.
Daltun brings us on a journey into the history and ecology of Ireland's woodlands and provides an inspiring vision of their social, ecological and cultural potential if allowed to thrive again * Manchan Magan, writer and broadcaster * This is an inspirational book. Eoghan Daltun's mission to restore an Irish rainforest has already inspired thousands via his posts on social media, and this account is sure to galvanise many more. Eoghan's evocative descriptions of the temperate rainforest he discovered growing on the Beara Peninsula, his knowledge of history and place, and his wisdom and insights into how to repair this damaged ecosystem, mean this book should be urgently read by politicians and the public alike. The time has come to restore temperate rainforests across Ireland and Britain * Guy Shrubsole, environmental campaigner and author of The Lost Rainforests of Britain (William Collins, 2022) and Who Owns England (2019) * Eoghan Daltun's wildly inspirational memoir of adopting a slice of Ireland's coast and snatching it from ecological degradation is an invaluable and timely revelation. By simple, if backbreaking, means-fencing out herbivores, extirpating invasives, and encouraging natural reseeding-he has allowed the land to live its best life, recovering its true character as temperate rainforest. It's a breath-taking accomplishment on an island where only one percent of original woodland survives and an urgent prescription for Ireland's remaining forest fragments. The moving epiphanies of Daltun's encounters with the simply aching beauty of this intoxicating place leave you rejuvenated, as if you've won a much bigger jackpot than any of those they sell tickets for. The most exhilarating account of rewilding yet written * Caroline Fraser, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution * In this part-memoir, part environmental treatise, we watch a temperate rainforest flourish on the Irish coast and are asked to examine larger questions about climate breakdown * Irish Independent * If much ecology writing in Ireland is about paradise lost, then Daltun's odyssey, which at times takes on an almost dreamlike quality, is about paradise regained. He offers readers a tantalising glimpse into the mysterious, mystical, even spiritual wild world that lies waiting to be rediscovered * Sunday Business Post * Daltun [...] writes with passion and purpose of the way we should live now * RTE Guide * The book is both a lament for what's been lost, and a hopeful story of restoration * Irish Times *
