The green grass of home is a menace

WE have found remote, west Cork beaches free of the noxious green sea ‘lettuce’ that has plagued so many Irish estuaries and strands.

Small coves fare better.

This weed is an abomination. Washed ashore by successive tides, it builds into metre-high ridges running the length of our best beaches, where it dries and forms a film-like skin on the surface. The weed underneath, heated by the sun, becomes a putrefying aerobic digester, blocking access to the sea.