A PHOTO STUDY OF IRELAND’S ENVIRONMENT
(Longer captions can be found in the nli collection)
In 2024 the National Library of Ireland (NLI) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) joined forces to create a Photographer-in-Residence initiative to visually capture and record our experience of the Irish environment.
The aim of the NLI was that a selection of the resulting digital photographs would become part of the permanent national digital collections at the National Library of Ireland. The EPA aim was to create a permanent photographic record of different aspects of the impact of human interaction with the environment in both positive and negative ways; to capture the richness and diversity of our changing landscapes, but also spark a discussion about our present, and the future we are working towards.
As selected Photograph-in-Residence, Paula T Nolan called her project, ‘ReViewing Ireland: A Photo Study of Ireland’s Environment’ and travelled to each of the 26 counties between April 2024 and May 2025 using public transport and an ebike. In each county she pursued two or more issues, taking photographs and interviewing people. The interviews became captions for the almost 400 photos selected for permanent public access in the National Photographic Archives of the National Library of Ireland.
https://catalogue.nli.ie/Search/Results?lookfor=Paula+T+Nolan&type=AllFields
Siopa Glas in Ballon, County Carlow, is a large retail outlet for second-hand goods. It is all about inclusivity, sustainability, the circular economy and making Ballon an environmentally responsible village. Pictured are Bernie Mullins, Breda Wray and Máire George.
Sean Thornton of Cavan Adventure Centre near Butler’s Bridge stands beside a large tree uprooted by Storm Eowyn. Sean is an example of many who inherited farms but to make a living, diversified. Sean hires out kayaks and provides land and water-based activities for all ages on the Lough Oughter waterway system and the wider UNESCO Global Geopark. Sean is passionate about maintaining a healthy diversified eco system on his farm, attracting an abundance of wildlife.
Jeremy Turkington, Seed Collector and Seed Bank Coordinator, helping with the tree planting at Dromoland along with Enda O’Brien, one of the volunteers from Hometree’s Spring Experience Week. Proceeds from the planting of 1500 trees over two days will go towards funding the work of Hometree. As the name suggests, Hometree was established to create a forest regeneration centre of excellence built around the best practices, agroforestry techniques, and the most vibrant and healthy organic tree nursery.
Bladebridge repurposes decommissioned wind turbine blades into sustainable infrastructure. A rotor blade serves twenty years then is replaced, old blades often ending up in blade graveyards. Here you see Angie Nagle of Bladebridge at their warehouse and site in Bottlehill, near Mallow, County Cork.
Leaving deadwood where it lands provides food, habitat and shelter to a variety of plants, animals and fungi which in turn are preyed upon by other animal groups, while also benefitting nutrient retention and site fertility. In the Phoenix Park Conservation Management Plan 2011, a stated action was to leave trees to die naturally, to leave deadwood on site (in selected areas) where there is no danger to users of the Park.
Piles of shredded scrap metal prepared for transportation and for export at Galway Metal Company Ltd, Oranmore. The EPA’s 2022 report ‘Circular Economy and Waste Statistics’ (published in 2024) revealed that in 2021, metallic waste accounted for 463,000 tonnes, or 2.6 percent, of all waste generated in Ireland.
Valentia Island Lighthouse need to provide facilities compatable with a tourist attraction, and as there is a small café, toilet facilities were required. Lucian Horvat, CEO of Valentia Island Development Company CLG, explained their solution: The wastewater is pumped out into a reed bed, a certain reed that has bacteria in the roots that break down the waste in the water. It then goes down into a second reed bed, just to ensure that the water is fully clean, and then goes back into the ocean. The first reed bed is to the left of the lighthouse in this photo, the second sloping on the right, sloping down to the sea.
Kincora Stores – Carey’s – in Portarlington, County Laois, had been in the Carey family since 1903, and was due to close a few days after this photograph was taken. Tom Carey, pictured here, took over in 1970 on the death of his father. In his hand is the box of account books where Tom kept track of purchases, allowing people to settle their bills on pay-day, just one of many ways the shop facilitated the needs of the local community. This sort of kindness, and generosity of spirit, is a huge loss to any community, and these kind of shops are fast becoming a thing of the past. In their place people drive longer distances, often in heavy traffic, to large car parks attached to large supermarkets. In terms of becoming less car-dependent, the loss of the local ‘needle to an anchor’ type shop has increased car-dependence significantly.
Rows of apple trees in the orchard at Highbank Orchards Kilkenny in September, 2024. Apples have been produced at Highbank since the 1970s, and Rod and Julie Calder Potts have been running this farm organically since the early 1990s, concentrating on the apple orchards. Of huge interest is that their methods of organic apple production is based on the wisdom of Shumai monks who visited Highbank some years ago – you can read more in the longer caption in the online collection. Rod and Julie are members of Farming For Nature, an organisation that works with farmers to enhance the natural health of the countryside.
Leitrim boasts a Community Garden Network. The goal of the network is to facilitate community garden groups in sharing their experience and competencies, to spotlight the rich diversity and dedication of community garden groups in Leitrim, and for all groups to work together to address common issues and achieve shared goals. Photographed here is volunteers from Mohill Community Garden working in one of their polytunnels. Left to right, Ivy Boddy, Bridie McIntyre, Martin Murray, Mary Taylor, Therese Foy and Caillin Reynolds (Community Outreach Worker Leitrim Development Company).
Sr Brigid of the Little Company of Mary, and John Le Gear standing under an old oak tree in the Infinity Forest, Milford Convent, Castletroy, Limerick. This newly planted Infinity Forest is located on a small area of land owned by the sisters. The overall aim in planting this forest is to protect and enhance for biodiversity and leave a legacy that will promote healing health, spirituality, and education. John Le Gear, while employed by Coillte, is volunteering with the project on his own time. It is a great example of planting trees you may never get to sit under.
View from the footbridge over Tarmonbarry Weir, Longford. Tarmonbarry Weir is 150km upstream of Limerick city and the next major water barrier after Limerick. The fish pass at this weir is widely condemned as not fit for purpose, being referred to as a temporary structure never replaced, or simply a part-constructed fish pass never completed. This is of grave concern as fish get trapped at Tarmonbarry when migrating in the upper River Shannon. Generally in Ireland at this time there are concerns that fish passes are not being treated as a high priority.
The Louth Nature Trust supports a halt to biodiversity loss through the restoration a protection of natural habitats. One of their many projects takes place at Baltray, County Louth, where I met with Dominic Hartigan. Himself and a team of volunteers had spent the morning working on erecting fence protection for terns at breeding season. This photograph shows some of the red fencing erected to protect breeding terns from walkers and dogs on the beach. In the distance is Carlingford. From left to right: Darci Breslin, Matthew Byrne, Dominic Hartigan, Ivan McKenna and Tommy Doherty, some of the volunteers on the day.
The ‘Creation Walk’ at Knock, County Mayo, is a circular prayer walk beneath trees with 30 signposts linking Science with Sacred Scripture. Brian Grogan SJ, who wrote the book to accompany this walk (Creation Walk: The Story of a Small Blue Planet) explained the movitvation by saying Pope Francis’ concern with the environment led to his own ‘eco-conversion’, and feeling obliged to do what he could for the environment in collaboration with others. Knock is a well-known place of pilgrimage since 1879, when there is said to have been an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Visitors come to Knock from all over the world, with about 1.5 million pilgrims visiting each year. So ‘Creation Walk’ plays an important role in converting pilgrims to take personal responsibility for our shared environment, and to help put to rest the scripture vs science divide.
What you have here are huge bags of heatsinks in the wearhouse of Irish Metal Refineries in Duleek, County Meath. A heatsink is a component used in electronic devices to dissipate heat and prevent overheating. It is typically made of aluminium or copper. Each bag here contains close to 1000 kg/net. Up until recently before my visit, IMR had a record of recycling 98 percent of the material brought to them. Martin Murphy of IMR was proud to tell me that it was now 100 percent. The component that had caused the shortfall was the tip of the cable that goes into your phone to charge. Such a small item, but multiplied by millions quite the problem.
The County Monaghan Wetland Action Plan aims to develop an integrated plan for the conservation of the wetland resource in County Monaghan, through co-operation and engagement with a wide range of partners and community groups. Extensive work has been undertaken in identifying and characterising the ecological character of wetlands throughout the county, producing a valuable dataset containing information on 710 wetlands to date (February 2025). This photograph shows Convent Lake, situated in the grounds of Saint Louis Convent and School, directly adjacent to the centre of Monaghan town, and shows the ‘crannóg’ in the centre of the lake. The town boasts three wetlands, unusual for an area of urban settlement: Convent Lake, Peter’s Lake and Mullaghdun Lake.
Cushina Bog in County Offaly is worked on by the owners of the land, and is not a commercial bog. The owners of the land have Rights of Turbary, so collect turf for their own use. Desmond Fitzpatrick, seen here in his tractor laying down turf, has Rights of Turbary on Cushina Bog. He says, “when you have your turf home, at least you know you have heat for the whole winter, and there’s no costs going to surprise you.”
When visiting Strokestown House and Gardens they were in the process of creating a new ‘Wild Garden’, a section of their already renowned gardens dedicated especially to biodiversity. In their own words: ‘This area is lightly managed to care for native species: the hedges, trees, plants and flowers offer potential food and shelter for wildlife. Small insects, beetles and snails living under the leaf litter are food for birds and hedgehogs. Red squirrels gather nuts from the small forest of hazel trees. The pond – an original feature of the garden – provides water for wildlife and attracts newts, moorhens, damselflies and dragonflies.
‘All Things Natural’ is an excellent example of one of the numerous shops popping up all over Ireland to offer consumers a chance to purchase nature-friendly household cleaning products, and to reuse the containers of these products. Edel Burke lives in West Sligo in a townland called Skreen, and has four children. She is deeply passionate about all thing’s nature, thus the name of her shop. Edel says, “Plastic waste is the most highlighted topic when it comes to conversation in my shop, of course the reason for this is because our shops ethos is to reduce the amount of plastic waste used daily.”
At 10am on Thursday 20 March, 2025, I counted 22 airplane trails across the sky over Thurles Train Station. This observation is not intended to feed into conspiracy theories about the trails. It simply means in a matter of a few minutes, 22 planes flew overhead, creating clouds of vapour in an otherwise cloudless sky. Thurles is on Dublin, Shannon, New York and Boston flight paths.
This photograph shows a group of scientist from ENVIRON 2024 on a tour a tour of the Copper Coast, a UNESCO Global Geopark that extends 25m along the South East coast of County Waterford. Specifically, they are standing on the cliffs opposite Tankardstown Mine. You can see that the scientists are standing on a ‘track’ right by the cliff. This is the remains of the railway track that allowed the mined copper to move efficiently from Tankardstown to Bunmahon, and from there further afield. The imprint remaining of this railway track tells a story of erosion, as it was once several meters further away from the cliff edge than now. Ireland’s has about 7400km of coastline, and currently about 20% or 1400km is at risk of coastal erosion.
ReViewing Ireland took a trip with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Ireland experts for routine groundwater testing at a closed landfill site in Wexford. This routine testing is done by pumping up water from deep wells drilled around a site. This allows the EPA to monitor the area around a landfill to check that leachate from the landfill waste is not making its way into the surrounding environment. Here we see Tara Sweetman (Scientific Officer III, EPA) and Jessica Graca (Scientific Officer II, EPA) pumping up groundwater for testing at a landfill site in Wexford. The EPA monitor groundwater levels at over 90 locations nationwide, and levels are recorded every 15 minutes by dataloggers at each site. Equipment used is calibrated throughout the year to ensure accuracy. Long term hydrometric records are essential for informing the sustainable use of our water resources.
Viewing Starling murmurations is such a popular pasttime Westmeath County Council’s logo was designed based on this phenomenon. This photograph shows a murmuration as seen from Ladestown, Lough Ennell, Co Westmeath on 2 March 2025. Murmuration season goes from November to March, and ended a couple of weeks after this photograph was taken. Thank you to Philomena Brady who generously shared her great knowledge of photographing murmurations with me, and took me to the best places to view them.
On Monday 24 June Catherine Bradley, Freshwaters Scientist with the EPA Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Unit, invited me to join her as she sampled water from the Lower Dargle River in Bray, County Wicklow. The Dargle is about 1km upstream of Bray town. In this photograph we see Catherine kick sampling in the distance, and the clear clean-looking water in the foreground. The kick sampling technique is used to disturb the river substrate and allow the collection of the macroinvertebrate community present at the river. The Dargle river is currently (June 2024) classified as good quality for macroinvertebrates.
In November 2023, Edge Hardware Store in Fairview, Dublin 3, closed its door for the last time after 106 years serving the local community. In September I was given permission to make a project on this unique shop, at a time when much of the stock was already cleared out, but the spirit of the place was still very much intact. If anything, it was stronger, as daily, even hourly, people came in to buy something there for the last time, and to wish Victor and Michael well.
The first photograph that appears here is a scene we all witnessed over the decades: Victor in his tiny office. I was told that one of his daughters had taken photos of this office and all the bits and pieces on the wall, and was going to replicate it in Vincent’s new office, in his home. His very own Francis Bacon experience.
Apart from a record of this shop, I wanted to capture the spirit of it along with a sadness we all felt at the end of an era. Being almost half empty gave this air of woebegone, and although Victor and Michael smiled to camera most of the time, some images captured them less posed.
It cannot go without saying that the community’s love of Edge Hardware was not based solely on serving the community with all its hardware needs. It was every bit as much because of the lovely nature of Victor and Michael and all who toiled therein. Until making this project, I had not noticed the sign at the end of the long shop: ‘Lord, keep my attitude in check today’. I wondered how often over the years did they look up at that sign for a reminder when faced with a difficult customer! All I know is that I have never heard a bad word said by anybody about this place, and have heard an awful lot of good things said.
This is a snapshot in time, that time not being how the shop appeared for decades, but the gradual loss during the long farewell.
EVERYTHING MUST GO.
Beverly Edge, 10 May, 2017: This incredible photo was given to my Dad by his cousin the other day. Taken in 1922 to mark the first road side petrol pump on the northside of Dublin. The boy beside the pump is my Dads uncle, George Edge, and the man in the shop coat is Elias Edge senior, my great grandfather. Unfortunately we don't know who the woman in the photo is.
The Kincora Boys' Home was a boys' home in Belfast, Northern Ireland that was the scene of serious organised child sexual abuse in the 1970s, causing a scandal and attempted cover-up in 1980, with allegations of state collusion. For more information on this, you may google ‘Kincora Boys’ Home Belfast’.
These photos were taken in 2018, a long time after change of use from a boys’ home to a business premises. At the time of taking the photographs, the businesses had moved, and it was up for sale with pp for a proposed apartment block. For some years before this, the scandal of sex abuse had been much in the news, with many people calling for the demolition of the building – a reminder and a source of re-traumatisation for those who had lived there.
John Sullivan SJ was made Blessed John Sullivan in 2018 in a ceremony at SFX Church, Gardiner Street. This is a small selection of images taken of both the preparations and the day itself.
I was charged with the graphic design, including the huge image of John Sullivan to appear over the altar. It is five meters high and three meters wide. It was covered over by red curtains, then opened ceremoniously once the declaration of John Sullivan as a Blessed was made, a theatrical touch to proceedings.
I photographed preparations in the lead up to the event, and ‘behind the scenes’ on the day. The resulting collection was given as a gift to the Irish Jesuit Archives.
————————————-
My primary role with the Jesuits in Ireland was book design, and in this capacity I frequently worked side by side with the Irish Jesuit Archives, and other archives in Ireland and elsewhere. Thus grew a deep love of everything archival, and as libraries and museums increased access online to archival material, the world of archive material became ever richer and accessible. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to pore over archival material and use it in a book or other project.
Manresa in Birmingham is the place Jesuit novices spend time during their formation. In 2020 the community vacated the premises in order for it to be completely renovated. This project was to capture the house and the community before this major change took place.
The resulting collection of photographs was given as a gift to the British Jesuit Archives.
———————————-
My primary role with the Jesuits in Ireland was book design, and in this capacity I frequently worked side by side with the Irish Jesuit Archives, and other archives in Ireland and elsewhere. Thus grew a deep love of everything archival, and as libraries and museums increased access online to archival material, the world of archive material became ever richer and accessible. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to pore over archival material and use it in a book or other project.
In November 2017 The Adventure Project began the renovation of the Lock Keeper’s cottage at Newcomen Bridge, North Strand, Dublin 3. The cottage had fallen into a bad state over years of neglect.
The Adventure Project was an independent non-profit organisation delivering collaborative therapeutic programs and outdoor education experiences.
While operating this project at the cottage, the Project offered canoeing on the Royal Canal, while also acting as a central club house for their many outdoor activities. The Project leader gave me permission to take photos of the renovation over the many months it took to complete.
I was careful to check with every person photographed that they had no objection to my including them, and I excluded anyone who wished to be excluded. The renovation was enabled by the volunteers who came on board, many of whom had perhaps troubled backgrounds. The Project believed in the power of the outdoors and team activities to teach young people life-skills, ways of being and thinking, the importance of helping each other, and so forth.
Seeing this transformation take place was a huge privilege for me. I was like a ghost who walked around the work, camera and lenses hanging out of me. It is my firm belief that the ethos of this project holds the key to healing the environment by healing people first.
I do not make the mistake of thinking this applies only to those of troubled backgrounds. It is my firm belief that every bit as much healing is required by those in positions of power. Power and wealth corrupts every bit as much as disenfranchisement and poverty. These are very basic thoughts that I hope in the future to expande through photo projects and a book, or books. In many ways, there is nothing more important.
Capturing a moment in time and a way of life fast ending, this is a small selection from a major photo project on the Jesuit Community in Leeson Street.
My primary role with the Jesuits in Ireland was book design, and in this capacity I frequently worked side by side with the Irish Jesuit Archives, and other archives in Ireland and elsewhere. Thus grew a deep love of everything archival, and as libraries and museums increased access online to archival material, the world of archive material became ever richer and accessible. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to pore over archival material and use it in a book or other project.
This collection was given as a gift to the Irish Jesuit Archives.
The undertaker gave us a candle with our father’s name on it which I kept and still have, and light on Christmas Day. The first photo shows it on the windowsill of my father’s house as we are working to empty it and put it up for sale. I know my father looked out this window every day, many times, often stared out, thinking of my mother and his loneliness without her. He spent a lot of time in the kitchen, especially in the latter years when watching TV gave him no pleasure any more for various reason.
The second photo is of his sitting room chair after he died, and the third photo, before he died. If you look through the chair to the photo on the table, that’s my mother, and he loved that photo of her. The fourth photo is his chair at the kitchen table, then the kitchen after he died. After that, we see random places in the house and the familiar bits and pieces from when he lived there.
