FEATURE
T
he great Irish naturalist, Robert Lloyd Praeger (1865-1953), visited numerous offshore islands in Ireland at a time when many were still inhabited and he wrote with passion about them in his books, including The Way that I Went. “Islands are always fascinating”, he wrote, “particularly if they are small. Their aloofness makes a curious appeal. Picture the romance of approaching, after days of unbroken horizon, an unknown island!” Lambay is the largest island on the east coast and it remains a privately owned wildlife sanctuary. In 1904 the new owner of the island, Cecil Baring, came to the National Library seeking information concerning his new possession. Here he met Praeger and, in the words of the naturalist, ‘he told me how he and his wife saw in The Field an advertisement ‘Irish island for sale’, and how they promptly bought it and set about making habitable its old castle. Baring was keen to ‘enhance’ nature on the island, so he introduced a herd of fallow deer and, curiously, a group of wallabies from Australia. The descendants of both species are still present today. With common interests in natural history, Praeger and Baring quickly became friends and the former wrote how he and his wife spent ‘many a delightful holiday’ on the island as guests of the Barings. Praeger, who was deeply interested in island biogeography, the unique assemblage of species on an isolated area of land, relished this opportunity and wasted no time. ‘Shortly after he took possession of the island, I suggested to him that a detailed study of its natural productions – animal, vegetable and mineral – would be interesting, and might have important scientific results. He accepted the suggestion at once.’ Praeger immediately set about organising a team and, during 1905 and 1906, twenty different naturalists stayed on Lambay and, in his own words they ‘ransacked the island from end to end’. The result was a series of papers, published in
Robert Lloyd Praeger and his wife Hedwig. c. Royal Irish Academy.
the Irish Naturalist on the natural history of Lambay. Some of the animal groups were poorly studied at that time so it does not seem surprising today that the surveys resulted in five new species to science and between eighty and ninety animals and plants that were previously unrecorded in Ireland. Praeger went on to say, “Several islands lie off the South Mayo coast which are well worth a visit by those to whom the heave of the ocean is an exhilaration and not a burden. […] Many a wild crossing I have had among these islands.” Praeger repeatedly mentioned the many values of the curragh, the traditional boat design of the west coast. “The curragh serves as a tent also, for the lobster-men often spend a night on homeless islands, sleeping comfortably under the overturned boat whatever the weather may be”. He then recalled an event where the crew of one of these rowing boats saved him and some colleagues from spending an uncomfortable night on an uninhabited island near Inishturk. Today you can catch a powerful ferry from Roonagh Quay to the island of Inishturk, which is sandwiched between Inishbofin and Clare Island. Praeger and his wife, Hedwig, spent “an interesting week” on the island in 1906 where they stayed in a shed perched on a low rock with deep water half surrounding it. To make it habitable they removed from the floor “a half-inch compacted layer of Portland cement, herring scales, petroleum and sawdust. Then we settled down, surrounded by coils of wire, boxes of dynamite, and bags of cement, and we fried fish, baked bread and cooked bacon and eggs on a small pan over a smoky stove”. Today, the island has a permanent population of about 60 although in 1861 more than twice as many people lived there and they were then entirely Irish speaking. I wandered right around the cliff-bound island, regularly leaving the circular road, following choughs and puzzling over heaps of rocks that might have been the remains of deserted cottages. Here too I saw a great skua, the newest addition to Ireland’s impressive list of breeding seabirds. It was traditionally confined to the northern islands of Scotland but has recently been expanding its range around Ireland as it adapted to preying on fish discarded by vessels at sea. The Clare Island Survey of 1909–11 was one of the outstanding achievements in Praeger’s life and was organised almost single-handedly by him. With characteristic energy, he organised multiple teams of up to a dozen of the leading experts in their specialist fields in Ireland, Britain and other European countries. They scoured Clare Island, neighbouring islands and the seabed for records of plants and animals while also describing placenames, agriculture, climate, geology and antiquities. In total, a hundred workers took part in the surveys including many well-known specialists. “For three consecutive years, six or eight parties went out in spring or Irish Wildlife Summer ‘22
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