Imprint
- Hachette Books Ireland
- Hachette Books Ireland
Memoirs, The environment, Conservation of the environment, Natural history
Beautiful nature writing combined with a passionate appeal for a radically changed relationship to our environment, from the man behind Ireland's temperate rainforest on the Wild Atlantic Way.
An Post Irish Book Award Winner
'An inspiring vision' Manchan Magan
'The stories are absorbing, the writing charismatic and the ideas thought-provoking' Irish Independent
On the Beara peninsula in West Cork, a temperate rainforest flourishes. It is the life work of Eoghan Daltun, who had a vision to rewild a 73-acre farm he bought, moving there from Dublin with his family in 2009.
An Irish Atlantic Rainforest charts that remarkable journey. Part memoir, part environmental treatise, as a wild forest bursts into life before our eyes, we're invited to consider the burning issues of our time: climate breakdown, ecological collapse, and why our very survival as a species requires that we urgently and radically transform our relationship with nature.
Powerfully descriptive, lovingly told, An Irish Atlantic Rainforest presents an enduring picture of the regenerative force of nature, and how one Irishman let it happen.
Praise for An Irish Atlantic Rainforest: A Personal Journey into the Magic of Rewilding
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An Irish Atlantic Rainforest is [Eoghan Daltun's] fascinating account of moving his family to Eyries and slowly restoring the farm and renewing the woodland to the point where it's now 'simply exploding with biodiversity'. ... The book is a manifesto for saving our own corner of the planet through letting things be - Irish Times The Gloss
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An inspirational book ... 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 - Guy Shrubsole, environmental campaigner and author of The Lost Rainforests of Britain and Who Owns England
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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
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Daltun [...] writes with passion and purpose of the way we should live now - RTE Guide
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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
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The book is both a lament for what's been lost, and a hopeful story of restoration - Irish Times
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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
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There is a lightness of touch to this incredibly deep book. Its pages flow easily from reflections on life and death to analysis of the wider debates around rewilding and sustainable land use in Ireland, from global strategies for climate change to the minutiae of nature's tiniest creations - Irish Independent
Eoghan Daltun
Eoghan Daltun is a sculpture conservator, a farmer, an author 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 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, there has been 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 SeA nie, their collie dog Charlie, and five Dexter cows: Maggie, Gertrude, Amber, Nelly and Minnie.
The Magic of an Irish Rainforest: A Visual Journey is his second book. .
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