Michael Viney was our best nature writer. Many have come before, and many are emerging, but Michael’s simple description of life in Mayo, living off his acre of land with Eithne and Michelle is untouched. His observations of Ireland’s wildlife and wild places were unique, always supported by current scientific knowledge and interpretation but wrapped in Michael’s beautiful prose and ability to paint a picture with words.
Here at the western edge, we look out into an immense amphitheatre where the weather can perform in its entirety and do several things at once at different planes and corners of the stage. Clouds pile up into chorus lines, black squalls leap in from the wings, curtains are drawn across by hailstorms or lift from the horizon in magical clearance. Highs and lows, fronts and troughs – we see them coming and going, know the shapes they make in the sky.
(from An Exposed Place in Another Life)
Wow, for those who live on the western seaboard, this captures so much of what we watch and experience but are unable to articulate just like Michael did.
Another Life published in 1980 told of his and Eithne’s attempt to carve out a new life in the west of Ireland, away from Dublin and all its trappings. Their story not only described day to day events but embraced the wider community in west Mayo who created the fabric in which their story lived. Many of us considered living the dream, but most never do it, but we could live it vicariously through Michael and Eithne.
A must read for everyone, not just those interested in nature and wildlife is A Year’s Turning published by Blackstaff Press in 1996. My wife, Frances used to buy up as many as she could and give them as presents to everyone to read. Determined they should share and understand life’s seasons. We still have seven copies on our bookshelf !
“And here, suddenly, were half a dozen dolphins, leaping out of the breakers beyond the third wave like marlin in a Hemmingway film. The shining snow, gleaming dolphins, tumbling terraces of foam; they are with me now, even as I crouch above some reeking corpse on the shore, counting teeth.”
(from February in A Year’s Turning)
In 2020, we asked Michaels daughter, Michelle, to read a passage from one of Michaels book A Year’s Turning, a piece on whales and dolphins seen passing Thallabawn or Roonagh Quay or washed up on Silver Strand. It was a lovely piece, a homage to her father and his writing. To listen to it, click the link below.
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/446210396
Michael had an uncanny knack of observing and writing about the same experiences o
f nature you had also just observed. I often saw a species, and noted its behaviour, or had a thought while out and about working on my particular subject, during a survey or just wandering around. And there, the following weekend was Michael writing about the very same thing! But he explained and expanded on my simple observations. Way before the internet, Michael was so very much on top of the latest published research, important reports and thesis and wrote authoritatively and with great incite about the work and its implications for Ireland’s wildlife and wild habitats. Another Life was a must read and you would buy Saturday’s Irish Times for his column alone.
Michael was very supportive of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group and wrote about us in his column soon after we formed in December 1990 and he continued to follow our story with regular pieces on our work. To get mentioned by Michael in his Another Life column was a “badge of honour”.
Thank you Michael for sharing some of your life’s stories. Our thoughts go out to Eithne and Michelle who will have many wonderful memories to reflect on and share.
Simon Berrow
