At times, it can feel like we’re bombarded with all that is wrong with the world, with too little room to consider so much that is right with it. Messaging about the impact of our actions on the natural world often fails to land in a personally meaningful way, and the stark reality is that too few of us have fully grasped the import of the biodiversity crisis. Contrary to our preferred image of Ireland as a green oasis in a planet on life support, we are one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.
A Note for Nature is a programme that seeks to bridge the gap between theory and reality. It’s both a love letter to wild Ireland and a call to arms. Over an hour, we encounter some remarkable people dedicating their lives to protect Ireland’s disappearing nature. And through music from the RTÉ Concert Orchestra combined with stunning on-location performances from a richly diverse range of musicians, we get to see some of Ireland’s most fragile wild places and the beleaguered animals that manage to survive there.
Sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird sings An Chúil Daigh Ré in a magical setting amid a native forest and glorious birdsong. His contribution is as beautiful as it is unsettling, as he considers the sound of the songbirds all around him.
“That’s music right? There it is,” he says. “This, to me, is super nature, and it cannot be recreated if it’s taken away, and I see language and music as components of that. The cosmology if you like, and the poetics of sean-nós song are invariably enmeshed with the natural world. An Chúil Dáigh Ré is really one of those songs that sets out to exalt a place, giving you the ecstasy of a place, the sheer magnificence of a place: the peace that it can bequeath to you.”
Pádraic Fogarty of the Wildlife Trust pulls no punches when it comes to the crisis that is befalling our environment and wildlife.
“I think one of the challenges as an activist in this area is trying to communicate to people what a perilous state nature is in,” he says. “I think the analogy would be intensive care. Certainly it’s on life support. At the moment, the future for the next generation is apocalyptic, because we’re looking today at the collapse of entire global ecosystems, and we can’t fool ourselves by thinking that that’s not going to have an effect on our lives.”
The beauty of A Note for Nature is that it reminds us of the organic links between our living world and our music. It reaches beyond the starkness of the statistics, such as the fact that there are 11,000 species of insects in Ireland and up to 29 per cent of them are facing extinction. Somehow it’s as though we hear this anew when it’s shared within the context of a landscape that has music interwoven with the natural world, the two inextricably intertwined.
“I think it’s really important because, not just in Ireland but in many cultures around the world, nature is deeply embedded in our art, folklore and music, in our definition of who we are,” says Fogarty. “We’ve neglected it, but it is still there.
“One of my favourite things in Irish folklore is the name of the wolf: mac tíre, which means son of the land. I think there’s such an echo of our deep history in that. It’s about so much more than wolves. There’s such a connection between our language and nature that we’ve largely forgotten about in recent years.”
Threaded through the programme are contributions from artists including Maria Doyle Kennedy and Kieran Kennedy, Tolū Makay, Christy Moore, David Brophy, This Is How We Fly, Clare Sands and Susan O’Neill and Alannah Thornburgh alongside calls to arms from nature writer Dara McAnulty, Trinity College professor Jane Stout, surfer and scientist Easkey Britton and ornithologist Seán Ronayne.
For producer, Cepa Giblin of Crossing the Line productions, this programme marks a new departure in storytelling, one that she hopes might reach a wider audience, and in a way previous films have not managed to achieve.
“I’ve worked in natural history film-making for about 20 years now,” says Giblin, “and we’re constantly looking for new ways to get the message across. We all know there’s a biodiversity crisis, but like climate breakdown, it’s a subject that’s very difficult for people to take on and connect with. But there’s something in the power of music combining it with the power of imagery that can make an emotional connection like nothing else.
“We want to go beyond the facts and figures and reach people on an emotional level. Nobody wants to destroy the planet. I think people love nature, but we just can’t make the connection sometimes.”
A Note for Nature is on RTÉ One at 6.25pm on St Stephen’s Day
