Eoghan Daltun: ‘I knew this was where I wanted to spend the rest of my life’

On the Beara peninsula, a temperate rainforest thrives — the life work of Eoghan Daltun and his decision to move from Dublin to rewild a 73-acre farm. He tells his story in a new book

Eoghan Daltun at his home near Eyeries in West Cork. Picture: Don MacMonagle

Throughout my life I had always loved spending time in nature whenever the opportunity presented itself. In the area where I lived most as a child — Rathmines in Dublin — there seemed to be no shortage of the old ruined mansions and grounds of a departed gentry. They were essentially pieces of waste ground, but retained what had by then become incongruously regal sounding names like “Lady Longford’s”. 

Filled with broken sculptures, exotic trees, and bamboo plantations gone wild, they were the favoured and most constant playgrounds of myself and friends for years; places free of any adult supervision where there were no limits to our imagination.