To most people, the coast is associated with holidays, hot summer weather, beaches, sand dunes and fun. To some, it is a place for regular sport and exercise – walking the dog, cycling on coastal paths, swimming, sailing, rowing, angling – and many other water sports. For a few, it is their workplace – fishermen, shipping crews, port workers, lighthouse staff. To me, it offers an endless range of interests – a wide diversity of wildlife, fascinating archaeology and history and remote places like islands that give a glimpse of wilderness.
My earliest memory of the sea was playing on the sand in the old stone-built harbour at Sandycove near Dún Laoghaire. My father went off to swim at the Forty Foot Bathing Place ‘for Gentlemen only’. I was much older when I learned that this was a place where men were only required to wear bathing costumes after nine o’clock in the morning.
When my earlier book Ireland’s Coastline was first published in 2005, many people asked me if their favourite place was included. I had to explain that the book was not a geographical guide but instead a general account of the ecology, history and uses of the coast. In response to these requests, I have now attempted to fill that gap. This book follows the Irish coastline from place to place, starting and ending at the north-east corner. I have explored almost all the places mentioned here either by boat or on foot. Occasionally, I have flown over them. Inevitably, my primary interests in ecology and nature conservation are discussed throughout the book, but I regularly divert into the subjects of geology, history and archaeology wherever these are relevant. Nevertheless, there are still some secret places that I have not yet reached, either because they are mostly inaccessible or because it is impossible, in one lifetime, to visit every small bay, headland and island in a tortuous coastline some 7,500 kilometres in length. The selection of places mentioned in the text is a very personal one and it is not possible to include every jewel on this endless chain.
Throughout the book, I have referred frequently to Ireland’s greatest naturalist, Robert Lloyd Praeger, who recorded, through his writings, accounts of many of these places a century earlier. Praeger was a prolific traveller and writer and he left behind an enormous legacy of scientific publications, some of them being among the first to describe in detail the flora of Ireland. My text includes many quotations from Praeger’s best known and more popular books, The Way that I Went,1 Beyond Soundings2 and A Populous Solitude.3 After the first mention, these books are referenced by (WW), (BS) and (PS) respectively, to avoid repetition in the reference list. In describing Praeger’s life I have been greatly assisted by two fine biographies of the naturalist by Timothy Collins4 and Seán Lysaght.5 Praeger’s writings and adventures ‘for seven decades of robust physical health’ have been inspirational to me throughout my life and I have tried to follow in his footsteps throughout Ireland on land or on the sea.
Understanding the weather and tides makes me acutely aware of how dependent we are on the sea and gives me a unique perspective on the Irish coast. In the main chapters I follow the coastline in a clockwise direction starting in County Antrim. In the final chapter, ‘Turning the Tide’, I reflect on some current threats to the coastal environment and how these might be approached in future.
The American writer and biologist Rachel Carson summed up how fundamental the coast is to our well-being. ‘Like the sea itself, the shore fascinates us who return to it, the place of our dim ancestral beginnings. In the recurrent rhythms of tides and surf and the varied life of the tide lines there is the obvious attraction of movement and change and beauty. There is also, I am convinced, a deeper fascination born of inner meaning and significance.’
My father taught me to sail in a wooden dinghy around Dublin Bay and I have enjoyed boats all my life. I love to be out on the sea with just the wind, the waves and some good friends for company. I would like my children and grandchildren to enjoy the same privilege.