I have waited a long time to write this piece. It is about Eoghan Daltun and Gary Lennon’s film titled An Irish Atlantic Rainforest. Given the film’s continued success and now that it has hit the mass media on the RTÉ Player, it strikes me that maybe the best time to write this piece was shortly after I watched it. But the second best time is now. This is not a review as there are plenty of those, but rather a record of my thoughts and observations that I would like to share with you.
Eoghan is surely known to most people interested in the natural environment, nature restoration and rewilding in Ireland and beyond. His quick rise to public recognition started with his book An Irish Atlantic Rainforest: A Personal Journey into the Magic of Rewilding. In it, he describes his work and passion for rewilding the farm he acquired near Eyeries on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork. The story is well known, so I’m not going to repeat it here. Besides, you can read the book and now also watch the film to learn all there is to know about it.
Now, back for a second to the ‘waiting a long time’ bit. I had the pleasure of attending the world premiere of the film at the Dublin International Film Festival on the last day of February – yes, I waited six months to write this. We can safely say that the dust has settled since then and I’m writing this not so much from the position of having had time to order and develop my thoughts as of still remembering them. So, this piece is as much for you as it is for me.
I know Eoghan personally and have had the privilege of walking with him in his forest. He was also a guest on my podcast, although not yet on an episode dedicated fully to his work. I knew the film was being made and even had a chat with one of the camera operators when I awkwardly tried not to trample the plants he was filming. So when I saw an announcement about the premiere during the festival, I quickly decided to turn it into a family day out and bought three tickets. I thought it would be a good idea to not only introduce my girls to Eoghan but also let them experience, albeit only on a screen, a native Irish forest and make them aware of the wider environmental issues presented in the film. Or so I assumed, since I knew little about it other than what I could anticipate from knowing Eoghan and his work. At least, I thought, it would be someone else talking, which would surely be a welcome break from my constant yapping about biodiversity and ecology.
Attending a premiere is a different experience from going to a regular screening, at least when it comes to the ambience and everything that surrounds the 91 minutes of watching the film. As expected, we met Eoghan, who, despite being the centre of attention and being pulled in many directions, made sure to make time to meet and greet people who arrived and were interested in the film. Predictably, I also met a number of listeners to the podcast as well as some of the previous guests. This created an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual understanding and perhaps this was a part of… not so much a problem as an observation. I felt that most people were not the people who would need to watch the film to be introduced to the issues it talks about. They were overwhelmingly people who already knew what was up. Preaching to the choir sort of thing.
Of course, it’s a different audience at a premiere and I hoped that future screenings would attract people new to the subject, and give them an opportunity to learn about Irish native forests. I believe that the film now available on the national broadcaster’s streaming platform has delivered on that hope in spades.
The second observation or slight issue, was the small number of young people attending the screening. I keep saying that I have so much hope and trust in young people, so not seeing many of them was a bit concerning. Then again, this was a premiere at a film festival, so perhaps that’s not where a younger audience turns up. An echo of this sentiment can be found in the film itself, where Eoghan says that his two sons don’t share his enthusiasm. But in all fairness, he also describes his own interest as an obsessive passion, so perhaps it’s all as it should be. A note here, I’m not quoting, I’m paraphrasing. It’s been a long time since I watched the film, but I’m close enough!
Finally, I want to acknowledge that there are some people, including a few listeners of my podcast, who, for a variety of reasons, are not big fans of Eoghan’s rewilding project. Or perhaps more accurately, of the online debate around it. I blame social media for that. It excels at turning a difference of opinion into a row. And just as spending a day with a farmer on his farm can change, or at least soften, one’s views on farmers and farming, spending a day with Eoghan on his forested farm will surely do the same. At the start of most episodes of my podcast, I repeat a tagline that I want us all to internalise and live by: less division and fighting and more dialogue and understanding.
