The mighty Atlantic stirs the senses

Damien Enright gets swept away by Ireland’s ocean

MICHAEL and Ethna Viney’s new book, Ireland’s Ocean: A Natural History, explores the surface and depths of the great body of water that laps at our shores, the history of its exploration, the life that inhabits and depends upon it and the difficulties posed by its over-exploitation by mankind.

As they note in the introduction, despite Ireland spending millions on marine research and mapping the sea floor, “there was no Irish book of general interest that might open windows to the ocean’s life and promise”.