"Few places on Earth, and none elsewhere in Ireland, have yielded such a concentrated inventory of knowledge about the natural world." Michael Viney
One hundred years ago, Irish naturalist Robert Lloyd Praeger led a survey of the natural history and cultural heritage of Clare Island at a level of detail greater than any area of comparable size at that time. Almost a century later, the Royal Irish Academy set about repeating the exercise with the intention of assessing and evaluating change on the island over the intervening years.
In this book John Feehan distils the results of the two great surveys with elegance and enthusiasm to shine a spotlight on the richness of life surviving on Clare Island. In easy, affectionate prose Feehan interweaves the natural and cultural heritage of the island and shares his wider ecological knowledge to help us understand the role each species plays in the life of this remarkable place.