Baby bats, 'big' bats all welcome — but the ultimate goal is to get them back home to their families

Bat Rehabilitation Ireland’s gives treatment and care to sick, injured and orphaned bats and a new night vision camera is a vital piece of equipment for this work

Bat Rehabilitation Ireland — bat hospital in Bruree, County Limerick. Picture Brendan Gleeson / Bat Rehabilitation Ireland

They keep her up all night with endless demands for milk — and then suddenly they're 'graduating'. And one of the best bits is that they don't stay in touch or miss her when they move on. 

Susan Kirwin, founder of Bat Rehabilitation Ireland in Bruree in Limerick reckons she's pretty much nocturnal herself at certain times of the year as she tends to injured, lost, or displaced bats. But "if we can get the pups back to their roost and to their own families" then that's the best result, she says. Despite the milk feeds by dropper every 2-3 hours and all the mealworms and care lavished on them the bats don't imprint on humans at all so they're quite happy to be back in their own territory when they're old enough or fully recovered.