Maeve Higgins: Ancient Irish understood interconnectivity of life and land

The World Wildlife Fund just reported that most major animal groups have declined by an average of 69% in the last half-century, and that’s been caused by the way we treat the land.

MEDIEVAL Ireland sounds so cool to me. I have to adjust my mind to understand how, back in the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries, the island was blanketed in forests, which were home to wolves, deer, and wild boars. The people there came from all over the world, and didn’t live in towns or cities. The population was small, estimates vary between 100,000 to 500,000 people who were widely dispersed.

Life then was precarious, but society was functional and cooperative, capitalism did not exist.