What worms do all day apart from boosting soil ecosystem

The poet William Blake may have said “the cut worm forgives the plough”, but Fiann Ó Nualláin is not too sure.

I don’t know how but our native name for the common earthworm is péist talún (earth pest).

Hell, we got that one wrong. The common earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris) and the 26 other earthworm species living in Irish soils are far from pests.