Fergus Finlay: Rachel Carson still has much to teach us — before it's too late

'Silent Spring' is as relevant as ever. And, sixty years on, we can't plead ignorance: We simply have no more excuses not to protect our precious environment

Pioneering scientist and conservationist Rachel Carson (1907-1964) is best known for her groundbreaking book, 'Silent Spring'. Picture: Evening Standard/Hulton/Getty

I was in Tinahely at the weekend where I bought a kilo of “bog carrots” for about €2. Dusty brown they were on the outside because as the woman in  the shop explained they had been grown in peat. I brought them to my daughter’s house in Shillelagh and we cooked them later as part of her birthday dinner. They were sturdy carrots, big and chunky, a bit sweeter than you might expect from a carrot. They were delicious. And they were grown in the hinterland of the village — like a lot of the produce in that little shop.

Tinahely is one of those villages in Wicklow where all life seems to live in harmony with its surroundings. It’s in the middle of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drift above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of colour that flames and flickers across a backdrop of pines.