Science / Nature

Not long before he died, Michael completed Michael Viney’s Natural World, which he described as ‘a personal popular narrative that gives a lot of my illustrations a further bit of life’. This highly visual publication contains over fifty of Michael’s meticulous illustrations in full colour, accompanied by a personal narrative full of keen insights and observations on nature, our relationship with nature, and a growing awareness of our vulnerability.

‘In the blunders of the Anthropocene, the era of human dominance,’ he writes, ‘we may not be “threatening the planet” – it will carry on without us – but we have affected the Earth’s systems in ways that make our own survival uncomfortable and insecure.’

The foreword is written by his longtime friend, the poet Michael Longley, with whom the Vineys shared this ‘soul-landscape’ for almost half a century. Longley writes of Viney, ‘Born to write, born to draw and paint, this deep-souled creator reconciled poetry and science.’

Trees mirror in many ways the life cycle of human beings: they are born from seed, they breathe and drink, they grow to maturity, reproduce and eventually die from age or disease. Their branches, roots and the veins of their leaves resemble human blood vessels, and certain species even ooze a reddish, blood-like sap when damaged. From ancient times, people appreciated the spiritual value of trees, singling out individual trees for special veneration. In Ireland the roots of tree worship reach deep into pagan Celtic religion and spirituality.

Christine Zucchelli looks at these trees, from Fairy Thorns to Rag Trees, from Mass Bushes to Monument Trees. This fascinating exploration of their stories and legends reveals their spiritual, social and historical functions from pagan times to the present.

The Turning Tide is a hymn to a sea passage of world-historical importance. Combining social and cultural history, nature-writing, travelogue and politics, Jon Gower charts a sea which has carried both Vikings and saints, invasion forces and furtive gun-runners, writers, musicians and fishermen. The divided but interconnected waters of the Irish Sea – from the narrow North Channel through St George’s Channel to where the Celtic sea opens out into wide Atlantic – have a turbulent history to match the violence of its storms.

Jon Gower is a sympathetic and interested pilot, taking the reader to the great shipyards of Belfast and through the mass exodus of the starving during the Irish Famine in coffin boats bound for America. He follows the migrations of working men and women looking for work in England and tells the tales of more casual travellers: sometimes seasick, often homesick too. The Irish Sea is also a place with an abundant natural history.

The rarest sea bird in Europe visits its coasts in summer while the rarest goose wings in during winter. Jon Gower navigates waters teeming with life, filled with seals and salt-tanged stories and surveyed by seabirds. At a time when Irish affairs feel like they are building towards an historic crescendo, he tells the story of the people who have crossed these waters, and who live on their shores.

Lyrically written and deeply considered, this is a remarkable and far-reaching book.