Book interview: Declan Murphy on empathising with wildlife and encouraging conservation

A lifelong ‘birder’, Declan Murphy’s passion has taken him across Ireland, and to Australia, Asia and Africa

Author Declan Murphy, with Lucy, in his favourite habitat, along the riverbank

WHEN Lilliput Press were preparing to publish The Spirit of the River, they were so impressed with Declan Murphy’s lyrical prose, that they suggested a literary prize winner should write the foreword. But Murphy wouldn’t agree. He insisted that the then 11-year-old activist Lilly Platt should write it instead.

“I wanted the book to reach budding naturalists,” he says. “I wanted to tell them someone has gone before you — someone who did what you are doing when they were young, and they’re still doing it. And that they will get there and can be confident and happy in their skin. And you don’t reach that audience by having a foreword from an ageing literary writer.”