White returns to her green roots

Despite her election defeat, Mary White has taken the green route, Sharon Ni Conchuir reports

WHAT happens when a Junior Minister suddenly loses her seat in the Dáil? Does she pick herself up, dust herself off and hit the campaign trail once more? Or does she re-evaluate her life and follow another path?

Mary White, deputy leader of the Green Party, chose the latter option. Her path is now leading her up the Blackstairs Mountains of Carlow where she, her husband Robert and daughter Dorothy Ellen are offering guided eco trails which focus on the wildlife of the local area.

I joined her for one such walk on a sunny morning in May. As we walked, we discussed her plans for the future and her thoughts on her recent political past.

“I was a real green long before I entered politics and I’m going back to what I did before politics, which is sharing my enthusiasm for nature,” says Mary. “I want to show people what an incredible world we’ve got and how much it needs to be protected.”

“This ordinary yet amazing life is all around us if only we take the time to appreciate it,” she says.

Back in the converted rectory she calls home, Mary continues to enthuse about nature. She pours glasses of homemade cordial, cuts up a plate of flapjacks and pulls out reference book after reference book about birds, mushrooms, slugs and snails.

“I get it from my mother who is a retired botanist and zoologist,” says Mary of her love of nature. “We lived in Wicklow and she taught us all about it: the wild flowers, the foods we could eat and the Latin names for everything.”

It was this idyllic childhood, part of which Mary spent being home-schooled, that made her who she is today.

Her love of the natural world is something she shares with her husband: the couple moved to Killedmond and their run-down rectory in 1980. They have spent the years since restoring it and its grounds so that it too can allow them to live off the land.

It was when this paradise was threatened that Mary took an interest in politics. The pristine countryside of her part of Carlow was to be home to an open-cast mining operation in 1988.

“The entire community said no,” said Mary. “But it took us four years of fighting to get them to listen.”

Following this success, the Green Party asked Mary to stand as its candidate. “I had my daughter, we were growing our own food and there was lots of work to be done on the house,” she remembers. “My life was too full for politics.”

Mary finally ran for the local council in 1999. This was the beginning of a political journey that saw her elected to the Dáil in 2007 and made a Junior Minister in the Department of Communication, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs in 2010.

This journey also saw her witness huge changes in Ireland and in the fortunes of the Green Party. Today, Mary is adamant that the Greens had no part to play in the downturn.

“Back in 2002, we said the boom couldn’t last and people called us spoilsports,” she says. “We weren’t the architects of the boom and we weren’t to blame in it coming to an end.”

Nor does she regret the decision to enter government with Fianna Fáil. “Any self-respecting party has to go into government when it gets the chance and 86.5% of our membership voted for us to do so,” she says. “We made mistakes, no question about it, but you learn from those.”

However, she doesn’t deny that her party suffered as a result. “All I heard on the doorsteps was that we were propping up Fianna Fáil,” she says.

“We were judged for that. We tried to get it right,” she insists. “I did my best and now I have to respect the people’s wishes. You have to accept the knocks in life as well as the opportunities.”

Mary plans to do this in a less political way from now on, her focus is on Blackstairs Eco Trails.

“I want to awaken people’s interest in the environment so that we can all become guardians of the earth.”

Her walks are suitable for everyone: schoolchildren, active retirement groups, locals and visitors. “It’s not a walking club or forced march,” says Mary. “It’s not about being fit or strong. It’s about walking slowly, looking and listening.

The walks last for two hours; during which Mary and Robert will point out the local flora and fauna, show you how to forage for food and how to find natural medicinal cures. When it’s all over, you’ll go back to the rectory for a home-cooked organic lunch.

“I want people to realise what’s around them” says Mary. “People might say it’s only the birds and the bees but the birds and the bees are the building blocks of nature, agriculture and life. Let’s appreciate and enjoy them.”

Mary is still enthusing about nature as I prepare to leave. She gets me to chew sea kelp and tells me about its nutritional qualities. She shows me records she and Robert have kept of life in Killedmond: detailing everything from fungi they have found to the arrival dates of the swallows over the past 30 years.

“I feel as though I have to stand up and speak about our wonderful world,” she says. “I’m right back where I started. Appreciating the simple life around me makes a nice change from the hurly burly of politics.”