The Magic of an Irish Rainforest Eoghan Daltun in conversation with Pádraic Fogarty

The Magic of An Irish Rainforest: A Visual Journey (Hachette Ireland), by author, environmentalist and rewilder, Eoghan Daltun, is a collection of stunning images, combined with deeply illuminating nature writing. Taking readers through the four provinces, this latest book captures the beauty and immense ecological value of Ireland’s areas of temperate rainforest, while also documenting their state of decline, and putting forward solutions for change. Join Eoghan in conversation with ecologist and author Pádraic Fogarty.

Supported by Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland (formerly Science Foundation Ireland) as part of Science Week 2024.

Eoghan Daltun is a sculpture conservator, a farmer, an author and, above all, a rewilder. 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 – 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. 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 voyage of discovery, which he charted in his award-winning memoir An Irish Atlantic Rainforest: A Personal Journey into the Magic of Rewilding. Rewilding most of the land, and High Nature Value farming the rest, has given him plenty of time to reflect deeply on the ecological crisis unfolding at terrifying speed all around us, and its solutions. Eoghan lives on the farm with his two sons, Liam and Seánie. The Magic of an Irish Rainforest: A Visual Journey is his second book.

Pádraic Fogarty is an ecologist and author of the 2017 book, Whittled Away – Ireland’s Vanishing Nature. He is a contributor to the Irish Times, British Wildlife, the Examiner and the Journal.ie on matters related to biodiversity.