'It’s a piece of heaven, isn’t it?': A West Cork rainforest and the mission to rewild it
Dromgarriff, Co. Cork. Photo: Bríd O'Donovan.
When we talk of rainforests, our default is to think of the tropical, the exotic. Towering trees that draw the eyes to the sky, unfamiliar sounds, overpowering heat.
Yet, like an open secret, Ireland too has its native rainforests.
Just like the tropics, these rare habitats are abundant and alive, deep with leaves, mosses, and undergrowth fuelled by rainfall and mild temperatures.
Wandering through the grounds of Dromgarriff Rainforest, on the outskirts of Glengarriff, we feel the magic of this ancient landscape. Beneath a rich, dripping canopy of leaves and ferns, the ground below us is soft. Everything is damp, moss-laden, lush. While tropical rainforests lure the eye overhead to take in their vast scale, here the focus is on the immediate — what’s right in front of you.
You’re drawn to the textures, the detail, the depth. Ancient oaks are coated in moss, ferns, and lichens. The air feels soft and wet, like a rainforest anywhere else in the world. The stillness encompasses you.
The canopy keeps us dry, yet we are aware of our feet squelching through the sodden forest floor. It is calm, still, meditative. We feel part of this strange landscape.
The late Manchán Magan wrote beautifully about our oceanic temperate rainforests and linked them back to our heritage.
“The term ‘Irish’ is modern and English. It doesn’t really represent who we were,” he wrote. “We were Gaels. We still are. At one time, we all spoke Gaeilge, language of the Gaels. And Gael means ‘forest people’ or ‘wild men’. We come from the bush, from these wet, dank thickets of woodlands that once covered three-quarters of our land.”
These woodlands once dominated the Irish landscape. But ferocious culling of our forests means it is estimated that these precious, rich, and fragile habitats now make up just one percent of our country.
Bryan Meehan took over Kenmare’s Park Hotel in a high-profile sale in 2023. Yet discreetly, with no fanfare, a year earlier, he had bought Dromgarriff Rainforest. Back then, it was called Dromgarriff Estate — no one seemed to have realised that the five rental homes, sitting on 96 acres, were immersed in an Irish temperate rainforest.
“It’s a piece of heaven, isn’t it?” says Meehan, speaking to me from New York. He fell upon Dromgarriff by accident in 2022, after years of living in the US. The Irish entrepreneur, who had created the organic food retailer Fresh & Wild, and worked with Ali Hewson on the all-natural beauty line Nude, had just sold Blue Bottle Coffee and felt the calling of home.
“We had decided we were going to buy a property in Ireland on the coast and have a base in Ireland,” he recalls. “I had left Ireland in 1991 to work in Scotland with Guinness after graduating from Trinity. I had not lived in Ireland since. In the same way you get a calling to leave Ireland when you graduate, to do something in the world outside Ireland, I had that same calling, 30 years later, to come back to Ireland. It’s very poetic. You listen to your body and you think, ‘okay, it’s time’.”
He viewed houses that just didn’t feel right. Then he got a call from a friend telling him about Dromgarriff Estate.
“I went to see it in February 2022 and the real estate agent showed me around. I said I needed to stay a night if I was going to buy it, because I needed to feel it. He said, well, don’t walk on any of the trails
because it’s dangerous. I was laughing, thinking in the back of my mind, the only reason I want to come and buy this property is to walk the land!”
The sole focus of the estate was the five rental homes, Meehan recalls. The trails were overgrown and untended.
“It was houses for rent, and that was it,” he says.
“But I had this feeling in my heart when I arrived at Dromgarriff. I needed to explore.
“I started doing my due diligence on the property, and I came across this man, the late Andrew St Ledger from the Woodland League. I asked him to come down and survey the land. He calls me up, and he said, not only is this incredible piece of land, it’s actually an ancient Irish oak wood rainforest — one of the last remaining temperate rainforests.
“And I knew, this is my calling. My calling is to look after this rainforest. To rewild it. So I renamed it Dromgarriff Rainforest.”
Driven by a deep commitment to climate and sustainability throughout his career, Meehan recognises the fragility and vulnerability of this precious ecosystem, and the responsibility weighs heavily.
“We don’t use the word ‘own’. We are stewarding this rainforest. Of course it’s ours, legally, but we have to show leadership, to look at what it means to take care of the land and support one of the lastremaining temperate rainforests in Ireland.”
He references Eoghan Daltun’s groundbreaking rewilding of his land on the Beara Peninsula, the subject of his best-selling book, .
It is a battle to protect these precious and endangered natural habitats. Due to the overgrowth of invasive plants such as rhododendron and myrtle, and Sika deer, which eat young trees, these fragile Irish rainforests are in danger of being overrun.
Andy Frame and Esther Kop Jansen maintain the land and manage the properties year-round for the Meehans. Frame, a passionate horticulturist, walks us through the rainforest, pointing out areas where he has cleared back the invasive rhododendron, giving the ancient oaks room to thrive again.
“Andy is trying to create circles around every oak tree, just let them breathe,” explains Meehan, outlining his mission to protect and preserve the rainforest. “We start, area by area, just trying to maintain the rhododendrons, and then open up the oak woods. That’s the number one priority.
“If the forest is full of rhodendrons, then the soil is naturally acidic, so there are fewer insects, and when there are fewer insects, there are fewer birds, and when there are fewer birds, there’s less growth.
“So if you can try and pull back the rhododendrons and then let the oaks breathe a little bit, there’ll be more native fern and more native holly and more native plants growing. Then the soil will change, and with it will come more insects, and with that will come more birds. And the whole cycle of the of the rainforest will become more alive and more natural. And that’s happening already for sure.”
Esther Kop Jansen has worked at Dromgarriff for over a decade. As she guides us through the rainforest and past the waterfalls, she shows us Garnish Island in the distance, points out seals — so close they are almost within reach — bobbing in the water.
She brings us inside Linden House, one of the newly refurbished rental properties on site. The view of the water and the bay from the floor-length windows is breathtaking — she tells us to keep a close eye on Otter Rock, named after the mammals who take refuge on it at intervals throughout the day.
The rainforest is alive with wildlife.
Meehan agrees — this is a place of healing.
Linden House has been completely refurbished, designed by Jo Nagasaka of Schemata Architects in Japan. Meehan has worked with the architect for decades, and Nagasaka is also overseeing the highly anticipated redesign of the spa at The Park Hotel in Kenmare.
“He really highlights the environment that he’s in,” says Meehan. “So he’s not ‘fighting’ with the rainforest. He’s trying to shine within it, with a minimum amount of material.”
Minimalist in design with homely interiors, this is a private sanctuary in the heart of West Cork. With 10 bedrooms, a vast kitchen, and a studio space ideal for yoga, it is primed for use as a retreat for up to 20 people. A jetty built in the early 1800s means there are opportunities for ocean swimming, with a striking outdoor barrel sauna also built into the forest surrounds.
“We wanted people from Ireland, from all around the world, to come and experience the rainforest,” says Meehan. Silver Birch is another property suitable for large families and gatherings, and there are also two smaller cottages on site for more intimate get-togethers.
Meehan now spends around a quarter of the year in Ireland, the rest of his time divided between homes in London and California.
His wife Tara and three daughters have embraced this new life in Ireland. As a family, they were all part of the decision to buy Dromgarriff.
“We all talk about, as a family, what we’re doing,” he says, “and they’re all really supportive of what we’re doing, and want to be involved.
“When I talked to them about buying it, the theme in our family, the height of discussion, was around sustainability and community.
“As a family, we had decided that we had properties, and we shouldn’t buy any more, and we shouldn’t build any more. In fact, we should retract.
“I got super excited when I saw Dromgarriff and I told my daughters. They were kind of raising their eyebrows and going, ‘Oh, here we go again’. But I described the vision of this place and what was going on.
And then Olivia, my eldest, very cleverly, said, ‘I am supportive of this on one condition, which is the five properties that are there, none of them should be our house. It’s there to be used. And if it’s free, when we come over, we’ll use that house. And if it’s not free, l’ll use the bedroom above the laundry room’.
“So we said we would make Linden into a retreat centre. We’d build this lovely yoga room in the middle, there for people to come and use. We wanted people to be able to share the rainforest.”
Dromgarriff is a sister property to The Park Hotel in Kenmare — guests can divide their stay between the hotel and the properties, or enjoy a tour of the rainforest. Many guests at Dromgarriff dine at the lauded Landline restaurant at The Park during their stay. “We make it accessible both ways,” says Meehan.
He says little about the anticipated spa rebuild, except to say he wants it to be the best five-star spa experience in the country when it opens this summer.
“We are building on the experiences that I have had from our trips from around the world and within Ireland. The big thing is how we connect the spa to nature, given what we’re doing at Dromgarriff.”
The development also includes six new bedrooms. Meanwhile, the refurbishment of the rooms continues. “By March we’ll have completed most of the bedrooms and suites,” he says.
Every time he visits The Park it just feels “right”, he says. It was awarded two Michelin Keys in 2025 and Meehan’s investment in, and devotion to, the arts is central, with 168 works of art now on display in The Park. His daily tours of the collection continue.
Reflecting his own values and character, he wants The Park to be accessible to all and grounded in community. He talks openly about an at-times difficult childhood — his family lost their home after the family business went bankrupt.
His modest upbringing keeps him grounded, he says, and he is inspired to this day by his mother’s love of the arts. Today, poignantly, the pieces of art she collected hang in Silver Birch in Dromgarriff.
“When I see my father’s background, being an orphan... we just remember where we came from,” he says.
“The people at Kenmare are welcome to the hotel... We’ve got to remember to recognise the human beings and the souls in each of us. And I think they helped me remember that for sure.”
In the long term, he anticipates his stays in Ireland will become longer and longer.
“Every time I’m in Dromgarriff, there’s this moment where I ask, why am I leaving here? It is so special. I think I will end up spending more and more time at Dromgarriff. I think that this will be our major focus in our lives.”
- In low season prices for the cottages start at €1,380 per week. Linden House starts at €11,000 per week
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