A new series explores what lies beneath Ireland’s most northern Atlantic waters
It's the morning after the final edits on Ken O’Sullivan’s latest series, Ireland’s Deep Atlantic were put to bed and despite a distinct lack of sleep, the prolific sea explorer is extremely chirpy.
“My first documentary was about surfing and the one reaction we always get about our films is that people can’t believe they are looking at Ireland. This incredible world is right here on our doorstep.”
Two years in the making, the series documents O’Sullivan and his team as they voyage from his home in County Clare into Ireland’s most northern Atlantic waters, to discover the incredible sea creatures that call our ocean home. A passionate conservationist, Ken Sullivan and his production company Sea Fever Productions are dedicated to showcasing the wonders of our coastal waters in an effort to highlight the importance of preserving the teeming life that resides within.
“You can’t go out to the sea and not highlight conservation – it’s like going to the Amazon and showing beautiful trees and wildlife and the river and somehow forgetting to mention their habitat is completely decimated,” he says. “Sometimes, when you see an issue and you have written to all the stakeholders involved and people have stood up in the Dail, at some point then you decide to tell the story because it’s the only way to get it out there. This is our opportunity to document what’s out there in our ocean, and show people the life that’s there.”
An underwater cameraman for the last 14 years, O’Sullivan’s work has been shown on RTÉ, TG4 and BBC Natural History, and his explorations have been immense. The sea, he says, is in his blood.
“My historical background is that my father came from Fenit Island in County Kerry, which is on the edge of Tralee Bay and most of my family lived there since about 1750. My father left there in the 1940s but I spent my youth there, fishing with nets and long lines and picking carrageen. It was an idyllic upbringing.”
With a family who lived and fished as people had done hundreds of years before them, O’Sullivan watched his father reconnect with his roots on Fenit Island, and as a result, connected himself.
“I think the fact that I grew up in Ennis in County Clare has a lot to do with why I do what I do,” he explains. “In some respects if I had grown up on the island I wouldn’t be the filmmaker I am, because I think there is an element of separation that inspired me to go back and reconnect.”
The opening scene of Ireland’s Deep Atlantic is a deeply cinematic shot from the coastline of County Clare, as O’Sullivan intones that even though he comes from a family of fishermen, none of them could swim. He is the first of the family to marry living by the sea with exploring what lies beneath. With a bevy of fantastical encounters with whales and sharks and all kinds of sea life that seem almost too tropical to want to live in our waters, the team traverse our coast on an 8-metre rib, specially designed for longer voyages out to the stormy waters of the Atlantic.
It was not an easy shoot, says the filmmaker, and it was crucial to have the right team on board. “There is a core group of three or four of us on the boat, and the camaraderie is fantastic. While solitude is wonderful, there were long nights where nothing would happen, and it is in those times that you need each other.”
There is no doubt that serious environmental changes are taking place above and below sea level, and the effects are already being seen here in Ireland, according to O’Sullivan.
Nothing happens randomly in the ocean. The whales don’t come to Kerry because they think it looks nice, they come to Kerry because there is fish there. The one environmental impact that dominates all others is that we are taking too much biomass from the ocean.
Biomass is fish. Conservationists say that the levels of fishing in Ireland are having catastrophic effects on our sea life, and we are already seeing the results in our waters. Sprat, a small fish that is worth less per tonne than rubbish from our bins, is the main cause for concern.
“People have been saying for 15 years that we have to stop fishing for sprat. They are the link between plankton and fish and are an extremely important part of the food chain. Boats are pair trawling – throwing a net between two trawlers and taking everything from the water between them. Sprat may be cheap, but they are crucial to the health of the ocean’s ecosystem.”
Sometimes a story can only be told through the lens of someone else’s vision, and O’Sullivan sees his role as much as an educator as one of a story-teller. “The great songwriter Joan Baez was asked the question ‘where are all the protesters’ and she said – they are the documentary filmmakers.” Working with RTÉ and various government bodies, he believes that only in working together can we bring about change. “You can’t go into communities – rural or coastal and point fingers; you have to collaborate.”
What Ireland’s Deep Atlantic hopes to do, is connect us to the ocean in the same way that Ken O’Sullivan felt connected to it for the first time. He wants us to feel a sense of kinship to our waters that will make us want to protect them. Our attitude towards the ocean and the creatures that live there has become skewed, he says, and it’s time that we changed our perception.
The big thing at the moment is everyone trying to get in the water and have this big life experience, but when you think about it, that’s really human-centric. It actually should be about the animals.
Whales in particular, should be respected and largely left to their own devices.
“People shouldn’t swim with whales - the blue whales I swam with out on the Mid Atlantic Ridge are ninety foot long. Consider that size for a moment.”
Ken says that he swims in the same waters as whales only under permit and in order to document them, and the danger is real.
“We shouldn’t do it, because there is every chance that we could interfere with them. Whales exist to feed and to breed; when we get into the water, we don’t scare them even 1% of what a boat would, but they are hugely wary of us. When I swim near them the potential for danger for me is enormous.”
With five scientific papers coming out of the series, Ken O’Sullivan is privileged to have witnessed wildlife and patterns of behaviour in our waters that has not been documented until now.
I have seen things that have never been seen anywhere in the world. What this means is that these are places of special significance for our sea life and that we as a country have a responsibility to mind these spots.
Of filming Ireland’s Deep Waters, Ken O’Sullivan says his encounters with some of the humpbacks off the west coast in the low winter sun were a filmmaker’s nirvana. Knowing that he is the only one underwater with the sole responsibility of translating the experience to film is a huge pressure, but one he wouldn’t trade for the world.
“It took me ten years to encounter a humpback whale in Irish waters, and my first thought was ‘don’t mess it up’.”
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