Nature Magic

Today Mary is chatting to the inspirational Susan Kerwin. Susan is a wildlife Rehabilitater based in County Limerick with a special focus on bats. She found her love for bats when suffering from insomnia after her cancer treatment. She is founder of Bat Rehabilitation Ireland and has just opened a fully dedicated bat hospital. Happy Halloween!

Connect with Susan on facebook at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Nonprofit-Organization/Bat-Rehabilitation-Ireland-112126603812172/

Recommended book
Wild Ireland
By: Eamonn de Buitlear

Check out Burren Nature Sanctuary at
www.burrennaturesanctuary.ie

Check out Ireland's eden at

Connect with Mary at:
[email protected]

Today Mary is chatting to the super talented, Kinvara local, Irene Graham. Irene is a writer, story editor and photographer. From 1998 to 2008 she was a full-time photographer signed to Getty Images in NY, with an image speciality in portraits, nature and architecture. In 1991 she founded The Creative Writer’s Workshop, which has become an international success in fiction and memoir writing. Irene’s writing workshops and courses provide innovative writing techniques based on right-brain/left-brain learning exercises that evoke recall and enhance creativity. She is Author of The Memoir Writing Workbook and I Am A Hare! Hanna and the Hop Family.

Irene lives in the West of Ireland, writing, taking photographs and tending her rock filled Burren garden!

Recommended book
My Heart Soars
By:Chief Dan George

Connect with Irene Graham

Website:
I Am A Hare!
https://www.thecreativewritersworkshop.com/i-am-a-hare/

Website:
The Creative Writer’s Workshop
https://www.thecreativewritersworkshop.com/

Website:
The Memoir Writing Club website
https://www.thememoirwritingclub.com/

Connect with Mary
[email protected]

Check out the Burren Nature Sanctuary at

www.burrennaturesanctuary.com
Instagram, Facebook and Twitter

Mary talks to Jenny Lloyd-Strovas about getting children off their devices and outside learning about nature.

Dr. Jenny is a biologist, researcher and educator. Her passion is connecting people with nature so they become stewards of our natural resources. She does this by helping parents get their kids off screens, outdoors, and learning about nature in their own backyards while building STEM skills and confidence. Her program, Nature Matters Academy, embodies the moto “You love what you know. You care for what you love.” Through Nature Matters Academy she provides STEM-based nature curricula and online programming to give parents the tools and resources they need to confidently get their kids outside and learning about the world around them.

App recommendation:
iNaturalist

Book recommendations:

Any books
By: Richard Louv

Desert Solitaire
By:Edward Abbey



Contact Dr Jenny at
https://www.naturemattersacademy.com

Facebook at
'Getting kids outside and learning about nature.'

Contact Mary at
[email protected]

Check out Burren Nature Sanctuary
www.burrennaturesanctuary.ie

Today Mary is chatting to Raquel Noboa from Fifty Shades Greener. Raquel has worked in the Hospitality industry for the past 23 years, working in hotels around the world since the age of 17. She knows the industry well, the challenges it faces and the mind-set barriers to greening a Hospitality business.

Raquel started her own green journey at Hotel Doolin, in Ireland. She was working there as the Sales & Marketing Manager in 2012 when the Hotel decided to start a Green Hospitality programme and Raquel was chosen as the new Hotel Green Manager.

Within 2 years of implementing Raquel’s green actions, they reduced their energy by 30%, waste by 40% and water by 25%. They also won every green award in Ireland and she positioned the Hotel as a leader in the Sustainable travel market.

Raquel believes in small wins, and going at your own pace, because greening should not make people jump through hoops, it is about knowing the environmentally sound options that are available and applying those actions that make sense to each business. Starting small, get the big wins, and then look at possible investment projects to become even greener.

She is a fountain of common sense!

Recommended book
Ethical Business-
Fifty ways you can help protect people, the planet and profits
by Sarah Duncan

Contact Raquel at
www.fiftyshadesgreener.ie

Contact Mary at
[email protected]

Mary Bermingham, cofounder of Burren Nature Sanctuary and host of the podcast Nature Magic- A positive voice for nature from Ireland- talks to Simon Cocking of Irish Tech News about the new Burren Nature Sanctuary book-Nature Magic- How you can engage everyone with biodiversity. The kindle version was best seller on launch day in many categories on Amazon including Green Business and Botany. The print version is due out on Amazon on 1 September
Contact Mary at
[email protected]
Contact Simon at
[email protected]

We talk to Gordon about treating the planet as a gift, planting trees and his recent book The Breathing Burren.

Gordon is a civil engineer but has spent most of his working life as a freelance environmental author, artist and educator. He has had 17 exhibitions featuring his nature artwork, has contributed to many magazines and has published 9 books: The Birds at Lough Beg, The Guide to the birds of Ireland, The Pocket guide to the birds of Ireland, The Pocket guide to the animals of Ireland, The Natural history of the Burren, Irelands lost birds, The Burren Wall, Narture- a nature art manual for primary schools and most recently through Collins press The Breathing Burren which has been so successful it is currently going to reprint.

He has also taught many educational programmes and designed concepts for visitor centres and nature display boards in 20 venues in Ireland.

Recommended books
Padraic Fogarty- Whittled Away
Gordon Darcy - The Breathing Burren
James Fairley – An Irish Beast Book 1975 Blackstaff Press

Contact Gordon through his website at
http://gordondarcynature.com/

Check out the Burren Nature Sanctuary at
www.burrennaturesanctuary.ie

Contact Mary at
[email protected]

Today I am talking to Sean McCormack. Sean is a life long naturalist, a vet by profession and a self-confessed nature nerd. He studied Animal Science at Agricultural College in Essex followed by Veterinary Medicine as a graduate in Dublin at UCD. Having been involved in wildlife conservation in various volunteer capacities over the years, Sean set up his own local conservation organisation where he lives in West London, Ealing Wildlife Group. He regularly leads bat and bird walks, speaks on nature conservation and biodiversity and runs volunteer-led habitat creation and management task days in key local habitats. He's particularly fond of reptiles, amphibians, bats and birds of prey. Excitingly EWG has just received funding to develop their very own nature reserve on a derelict allotments site, work on which will be starting as soon as lockdown lifts. Sean also hosts his very own podcast, Sean's Wild Life where he discusses wildlife, farming, sustainability, rewilding and our connections to nature. He has ambitions to start a new rewilding project in future."

Recommended book
Wilding
By: Isabella Tree

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatvetsean
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ThatVetSean
Ealing Wildlife Group: https://ealingwildlifegroup.com/
Sean's Wild Life podcast: https://shows.acast.com/seanswildlife/ also available on Spotify and iTunes
Media bookings: https://www.mjmmgmt.co.uk/talent/sean-mccormack

Patrick McCormack is an organic farmer from the Burren, Co Clare, in the West of Ireland.
If you are lucky you can join one of his occasional guided walks and learn about the history, biodiversity and culture of this special landscape.
Patrick is one of the strongest voices in Ireland speaking for nature and a return for sustainable land management. He also lives, with Cheryl his wife and family, in Father Ted's house!

Recommended books

So Shall We Reap
By: Colin Tudge

Arctic Dreams
The Crow and the Weasel
By: Barry Lopez

Anam Cara
By: John O Donohue

The author John Moriarty.

Gonçalo Santos is a 27-year-old chemist and amateur botanist from Portugal. His passion for plants started in 2014 when he created a garden from wasteland around his apartment block. It now counts over 500 native species and is enjoyed by all his neighbours! He is living in Dublin since 2018 and since then has been recording Irish wildflowers.

Recommended books

A field guide to the Orchids of Europe and the Mediterranean
By: Rolf Kuhn, Henrik Pedersen and Phillip Cribb

Collins Wild Flower Guide
By: Davide Streeter, C. Hart-Davies, A Hardcastle F. Cole and L. Harper

Ireland's Wild Orchids
By: Brendan Sayers and Susan Sex

Wild Plants of the Burren and the Aran Islands
By: Charles Nelson

Contact Goncalo at:

blog: http://somethingintheyard.blogspot.com/
Instagram (id: somethingintheyard): https://www.instagram.com/somethingintheyard/?hl=pt
Twitter: @goncalosbotany
Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Goncalo_Santos6
Linkdin: www.linkedin.com/in/gonçalo-lab-santos

Contact Mary at
[email protected]

Catherine talks about the INCASE project, (Irish Natural Capital Accounting for Sustainable Environments) her love of bogs and her new novel The Easter Snow.

Dr Catherine Farrell is an ecologist, specialising in restoration ecology and how to revive degraded natural systems. Catherine has worked on wetland and woodland systems across Ireland and internationally, with a particular focus on how to bring industrially used peatlands back to life. She is currently working as a research fellow in Trinity College Dublin with her attention now fixed on how to develop natural capital accounting through the lens of the Water Framework Directive (at catchment level) in the Irish context.

Catherine is a founding member of the Irish Forum on Natural Capital and works with businesses and nature agencies to bring the role of nature into broader discussions around ecosystem health, ecosystem services, natural capital and natural capital accounting, and sustainable environments.
Catherine is also a published author and likes to dabble in the arts under her married name of Catherine Wilkie. Her novel The Easter Snow was published and launched in May 2019.

Check out Catherine’s research on natural capital accounting here:
www.incaseproject.com

Check out Catherine’s novel The Easter Snow here:
www.catherinewilkie.ie
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/reuniting-and-remembering-two-souls-who-left-nothing-after-them-but-their-names-1.3946830

Catherine’s recommended books:
James Lovelock - Gaia
Fritjof Capra – The Web of Life
Paddy Woodworth - Our Once and Future Planet
Aldo Leopold – A Sand County Almanac
Mary Oliver - Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

Check out the Burren Nature Sanctuary at
www.burrennaturesanctuary.ie

Contact Mary at
[email protected]

John Feehan on Offaly Heritage https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYNptVFV3jzT7TBFGSWFr4g

Link to forest bathing information
Diana Beresford Kroeger- To Speak for the Trees
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBOVet8Ki4g