The mighty Atlantic stirs the senses

Damien Enright gets swept away by Ireland’s ocean

MICHAEL and Ethna Viney’s new book, Ireland’s Ocean: A Natural History, explores the surface and depths of the great body of water that laps at our shores, the history of its exploration, the life that inhabits and depends upon it and the difficulties posed by its over-exploitation by mankind.

As they note in the introduction, despite Ireland spending millions on marine research and mapping the sea floor, “there was no Irish book of general interest that might open windows to the ocean’s life and promise”.

Few authors could be better qualified to compile this milestone volume. They are intimately acquainted with the Atlantic. They breathe Atlantic air; it is part of their everyday lives, shaping the surrounding coast and the land with its rain-laden winds and violent storms. Day and night, it rolls onto a beach below the Co Mayo home where they have lived for 30 years.

Michael has often written about the rare creatures and plants washed up by the tide, and the science of the ocean. With his understanding of the currents, weather patterns and seismic events that influence our vast sea and the life that inhabits it, he has engaged his readers with his knowledge and his enthusiasm. In Ireland’s Ocean, he and his wife have created a well-illustrated, encyclopaedic and immensely readable story of the sea that surrounds Ireland and our interface with it, present and past. This fine book is essential reading for everyone with an interest in the natural history of Ireland.

nIreland’s Ocean: A Natural History (The Collins Press) €29.95.

MEANWHILE the Atlantic also shapes my surroundings on the south coast. Its southwesterlies sculpt the stunted “sceacs” on the cliff tops and bring winter and summer rain. In our garden, we have a set of wooden seats shaded by an umbrella. Late one night last week, bored with TV, I went and sat under it. I listened to the rain pattering overhead and the wind noise in the bare beeches across the stream.

For minutes at a time, it was like whispered exchanges: rumours spreading from tree to tree with silences between. But now and then, the whispers would become louder and rise to a roar, as if a quarrel had broken out and a fit of anger had possessed the wind and sent it rushing through the branches. I could well imagine why our ancient ancestors might have thought there were gods in the wind, Zephyrs who, if dishonoured, could raise storms and blow our mortal structures into insignificance. Perhaps they sought to appease the wind. It could be benevolent, too.

The night had begun cloudy, but the wind had blown away the clouds. It had revealed the stars. While I hid under my umbrella, the heavens shone bright above for the first time in weeks, the constellations and nebulae of the Milky Way clearly visible — I’d glimpsed them as I dodged across the yard. Now, when the wind roared, I might have thought — had I not known better — that it was roaring at me for ignoring its work, threatening to blow me and my shelter off the earth’s surface.

So, in deference to the gods, I decided that I would stand out in the rain and admire their labours. Hatless, with raindrops bouncing off my head, I was sure I heard the wind’s angry roar instantly change to one of approval, like the roar of a crowd at a match cheering me for having converted a penalty. Damp but satisfied, I went indoors. It’s amazing what one can believe in the dark.

Next morning, gales blew from the north and it was a cold, bright day. I drove to the pier to throw fish guts to the gulls and chicken bones to the crabs. White-caps bucked and broke on the blue, dancing sea and the gulls pitched above me in amazing aerobatics or glided so effortlessly and thrillingly down the currents of air on outstretched wings that it would make one want to be a gull.

Overnight, the heavy, teak-spoked umbrella had been lifted from its mooring in the table centre and dashed against a wall. It was just as well I had stepped out from under it to honour the angry wind gods, got wet and retreated indoors. Had I lingered beneath it, they might have carried me away too.