Ella McSweeney
Freelance Journalist and Writer at Freelance
irish, journalist. farming, food, land. own views. peripatetic!
Articles
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1 day ago |
irishtimes.com | Ella McSweeney |ella mcsweeney
If I went to my doctor with a cancerous tumour that was treatable and curable, and he shrugged it off and told me to accept it – knowing that without treatment, it would eventually kill me – I’d think he had lost his mind. Yet this is how the Irish State plans to treat some of our most treasured rivers, lakes and estuaries.
Ella McSweeney: Ireland’s remaining bogs can have a second tale - of creation rather than extraction
1 week ago |
irishtimes.com | Ella McSweeney |ella mcsweeney
Earlier this week a family friend shared a newspaper article from the early 1980s by the late UK gardening correspondent Graham Rose. In it he wrote about Ireland’s 10,000-year-old bogs, many with a carpet of peat 30ft deep. Over 100 sq miles, the bog was all he could see; a vast, “horizon-to-horizon emptiness” that held a “strange, eerie beauty”. Rose didn’t dwell on the bog’s splendour. Instead, he said it was a hostile, lifeless expanse.
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2 weeks ago |
irishtimes.com | Ella McSweeney |ella mcsweeney
Shucks and spinners, imagos and duns, clingers and burrowers ... You would need a dictionary to decode the language of the mayfly and the many terms describing its life stages. These insects spend years as juveniles on the beds of streams, rivers and lakes – some pressed flat beneath rocks – before transforming into winged adults, swarming above the water with a single, urgent goal: to mate.
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3 weeks ago |
irishtimes.com | Ella McSweeney |ella mcsweeney
The floorboards in the house hadn’t been touched for more than 50 years, so when we finally lifted some at the start of this year it wasn’t surprising to uncover a collection of random items tucked between the creaky old joists. Among them were cardboard milk cartons from Hughes Bros Ltd in Rathfarnham, set up by three brothers who established Ireland’s first pasteurisation plant in 1924.
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4 weeks ago |
irishtimes.com | Ella McSweeney |ella mcsweeney
Over Easter I was fortunate enough to spend a week on a farm in Cornwall. It had been too long since my last visit, and I’d almost forgotten the glory of the ancient hedges that lace the county. They weave and meander across the landscape, their towering banks transforming some sections of laneways into darkened tunnels.
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looking forward to this event @theshakingbog with @MarkCocker2 - may 17th
The remarkable and award winning naturalist and writer @MarkCocker2 will be in conversation with @ellamcsweeney as part of The Shaking Bog on May 17th! Get your tickets today ✨ https://t.co/B9OyOLRwjV
RT @theshakingbog: See you on May 17th at St.Patricks Church Curtlestown for an enriching and enlivening evening of events! Book your tic…
RT @simoncoveney: A great tribute to a special son of west cork. Matt Murphy leaves an extraordinary legacy in and around Sherkin Island…
