Book Review

An Irish Atlantic Rainforest: How a deer fence turned an overgrazed landscape into a rugged idyll

After buying a small farm on the Beara Penisula, Eoghan Daltun watched as the overgrazed, monotone woodland gave way to a riot of diversity

Eoghan Daltun in his temperate rainforest near Ardgroom on the Beara Peninsula. Picture: Don MacMonagle

You might not expect a book about restoring a rainforest to be a romance, but Eoghan Daltun’s tale of how he came to find his passion and purpose in the rugged wilderness of the Beara Peninsula is essentially a love story.

“Within seconds, I knew with absolute clarity that this was where I wanted to spend the rest of my life, if at all possible,” is Daltun’s description of his initial encounter with the wild ...