Ireland’s leading women in marine protection
Jack O'Donovan Trá, Aoife O' Mahony and Donal Griffin of the Fair Seas team. Picture: Domnick Walsh.
Throughout Ireland, we have many individuals and groups working tirelessly for the preservation of our maritime heritage, and among them an exceptional number of women who stand out for both their work and their commitment to the good of the seas which surround us.
Here, some of Ireland’s leading women in marine protection chat to the Irish Examiner.
is the campaign manager for Fair Seas, who have been pulling out all the stops for their World Ocean Day conference in Cork. “We are thrilled to be hosting our inaugural conference in City Hall,” Cork native Aoife shares. “Bringing a big event like this to Cork, with such brilliant international guests, is a wonderful opportunity to show off my home town and our beautiful harbour city.”
While pulling off this world-class event is no doubt cause for celebration, there won’t be much time to put the feet up once it’s over! “Our continued focus at Fair Seas is campaigning for more Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Ireland. At present, Ireland has 8.3% of our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) protected and much more needs to be done if our ocean is to bounce back from the myriad of challenges facing it — including pollution and overfishing.
“It’s very easy to become discouraged over how much we still need to do to protect our seas. However, through this job I have seen so much cause for optimism — I've been honoured to work with so many dedicated conservationists and scientists over my past 18 months in this role. It's really been inspirational to see how hard people are championing our biodiversity here in Ireland.”
As well as finding inspiration on the job, Aoife is luckily in no short supply of it at home. “I am blessed to have three small children who are passionate about nature on land and at sea. This inspires me to keep going. My daughter is hoping to be a marine biologist and I thought in this job I might be able to impress her!
“Their generation is well aware of the climate and biodiversity crises, but it’s my generation that has the opportunity and responsibility to change things. It can be as simple as on your next walk, take 3 for the sea — bring home three pieces of litter, and do your bit to reduce pollution. On your next visit to the seashore, explore a rockpool with greater enthusiasm and discover the amazing marine life we have on our doorstep. Ask your local politician the next time you meet them, what are we doing to conserve our ocean and how can we progress legislation and the designation of Marine Protected Areas. We can all do something to make a difference.”
is a marine ecologist specialising in biologically sensitive species such as sharks and rays. Following a BSc in Marine Science from Galway, she worked in science education in California for two years before taking an MSc in Marine Biology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands which culminated in research projects on the ecology of sharks and rays in Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique. She is now doing a PhD with the Marine Institute of Ireland and University College Cork, and also works with Marine Dimensions, a community driven marine education, research, and conservation project. As if that were not enough, Bríd is also undertaking an Irish language diploma at the University of Galway and writes weekly Twitter posts under #OceanAsGaeilge with translations of marine life in Irish.
It was her grandmother, without doubt, says Bríd, who inspired her future career.
“She was so connected to nature. We’d spend all summer in Kilkee in West Clare, picking periwinkles, chasing after crabs, searching for little fish in the rockpools, and learning about all of the amazing creatures that live in the ocean right there at our feet.
"I’ll always remember the first time she took me snorkelling in Kilkee, It was very cold, and the visibility was absolutely terrible so I saw nothing, but it was just so exciting to be able to connect to the ocean like that. I was hooked!”
The best part of her chosen field, she says, has definitely been the variety it offers. “I do have to read a lot of papers and analyse data, but I’ve also travelled to places that I would probably never have seen otherwise, like Guinea-Bissau in Africa. I’ve collected seaweed and sandhoppers from beaches around Galway and I’ve scuba dived with bull sharks in Mozambique. I’ve worked on boats, mangroves, and mudflats, in sun and in hail, and I’ve met interesting people at every step along the way. I can’t wait to see where it takes me next!”
For her PhD she is researching biologically sensitive fish species like rays (her favourite group of fish!), assessing their vulnerability to different threats, and trying to figure out where these threats are regularly encountered. “Being involved in this kind of project is really exciting because the more that scientists can figure out about the risks our oceans face, the more we can do to try to conserve them. I’m also involved with Purse Search Ireland, a citizen science project for the conservation of egg-laying sharks and rays. People can send us pictures of any eggcases they find on beaches around Ireland and we’ll let them know what species of shark or ray they found. This is really fun because I love seeing which species turn up on different parts of the coast!”
And then there is #OceanAsGaeilge. How did that come about? “I was reading Darach Ó Séaghdha’s book, Motherfoclóir, and discovered the phrase ‘chomh sámh le liamhán gréine’ (‘as chilled out as a basking shark.’) I thought that was wonderful, and it combined two passions of mine — Irish and the ocean — so I posted about it on Twitter and to my surprise it kind of blew up! It was never my intention to have a big following or anything like that; I just wanted to keep learning Irish ocean phrases and got really excited to see that others did too, so with no real plan I started posting every Friday morning. Now #OceanAsGaeilge has been going on for about two years and people seem to really enjoy it! After all, tír gan teanga, tír gan anam, and we’re lucky to have a very beautiful language here in our island nation, with the Atlantic Ocean right there on our doorstep!”
is one of those energy-driven women whose career and lifestyle would exhaust you just reading about it! Born in Bonn, she grew up in Wexford where she still lives. A marine-ecologist, at Trinity College, she is notable as an environmental activist, coordinator and co-founder of Coastwatch Ireland, and a member of the European Environmental Bureau. Her first degree was a BA in Zoology, followed by a Masters in Environmental Sciences. Her research work and practical projects range from wetland protection, waste, oil and litter prevention and control, to coastal zone management, environmental law and biodiversity policy.
Karin speaks and campaigns regularly on environmental issues, especially affecting water quality, wetlands, dunes and bathing beaches. She campaigned for reform of legislation including public information on water quality of bathing beaches, which was introduced in Ireland ahead of other countries, and she was co-designer of the Blue Flag for Beaches award programme. She also used Coastwatch data to lobby for the plastic bag tax, which brought the resultant litter of discarded bags on our shorelines down from over 54 per km to around three or four.
Illegal cockle dredging in Waterford estuary was challenged by Karin, as was the wrecking of Kilmuckridge Tinnaberna Sandhills in Wexford (now a Special Area of Conservation). Neither has she been hesitant about taking court cases, both as an individual and as part of Coastwatch. These are often to do with habitat restoration, improvement to landfill sites, provision of compensatory habitats, and restoration of wetlands.
Oh and by the way, in case you were wondering, she is married with four children!
What was it that shaped her career, drove her forward, and made her achievements to date so notable? “I suppose you could say it was the luck of having parents who loved nature and brought us kids in close contact from the earliest years. Plus the luck of a school and college environment where a mix of assessment, scrutiny, encouragement to speak up, and dreaming of the perfect world, were all possible.”
who lives in Antrim, is the proud and rare recipient of having a species named after her — something to which few can even hope to aspire these days.
“I have always been interested in nature and wildlife, but learning to scuba dive and getting to see the amazing animals and habitats that we have around the island of Ireland galvanised this. I felt compelled to learn more about what I was seeing, and find out what I could do to help protect it. This led me to getting involved with Seasearch, an organisation which trains volunteer divers to survey the marine environment and record data which can then be used to inform marine management decisions.
And so to that never-to-be-forgotten discovery. “On June 6, 2021, Seasearch volunteers were diving at the Skerries in Co. Antrim to gather data from the area. Like many divers, I have a special place in my heart for nudibranchs (a type of sea slug) so I love hunting for them. On the second dive of the day I was excited to spot a nudibranch that I thought looked rather unusual, and unlike any I had seen before.”
She immediately signalled her diving buddies, Bernard Picton (a nudibranch expert) and Phil Wilkinson, and the find was taken up to their boat. “I was excited to hear what Bernard thought, and even more excited when he said it could be a new species!
Much background work followed, including DNA sequencing, and eventually Libby’s find was shown to be a species of Dendronotus that had not been described before.
The results were shared with other marine biologists around the world who were also working on the Dendronotus genus, and on 1st April 2023 Korshunova et al. published a paper describing this new species. “After being assured it wasn’t an April fool’s joke, I was absolutely delighted to learn that Bernard, with the kind agreement of the other authors, had officially named the new species Dendronotus keatleyae!”
One of the things Libby loves about Seasearch is the opportunity to explore new areas and meet lots of like-minded people who have the same enthusiasm for marine life.
“You certainly don’t need to be an expert to get involved — I went from not even knowing there were such things to discovering my very own species!" And that highlights the importance of ensuring that our wonderful marine life, from the well known to the yet-to-be-discovered, remains for future generations.
She warns that if you start talking to a diver about the magic of the underwater world, it’s difficult to get them to shut up about it. “It certainly impacted my life in a huge way. I couldn’t believe what we had right here at home and I absolutely love to share my passion about it with anyone who will listen. Personally it has made me much more conscious about my daily choices, for example reducing any single use plastics and trying to make more sustainable food choices. I know lots of divers would say the same. Seeing the underwater world first-hand highlighted to me just how beautiful, but fragile it is."
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