Wednesday 14th July (Bastille Day) 2004 
Ireland's "stunning" beauty must be protected - against the Irish!  The gloves are off now, with a vengeance.The European Commission is finally taking legal action against Ireland for alleged breaches of EU environment law. We are broadly in the dock accused of "insufficient protection of Ireland's rich bio-diversity". In the arraignment, there are nine areas of fault, ranging from overgrazing of heathland in Galway to fouling seawater adjacent to shellfish farms with urban pollution. Our waste management is described in the press release as "unlawful and environmentally damaging".
The EU's Environment Minister, Margot Wallstrom said: “Ireland’s nature is stunningly beautiful. It is important to preserve this richness for future generations as well as for the tourists that visit Ireland. Full implementation of EU conservation legislation will ensure this." 
It is not as if we had not been warned. Ms Wallstrom, in a visit to Ireland in Jan. 2002, told us that if we didn't get our act together promptly on the environment, and water quality in particular, she would  unhesitatingly bring down the wrath of sanctions and fines on our heads. See News Feb. 1st 2002.
Well she's called in the artillery now and we are likely to get truly hammered with substantial fines and sanctions.
IFA and Macra na Feirme spokesmen defend our situation by saying we don't have intensive agriculture in Ireland compared to the rest of Europe, that in any case we have reduced sheep numbers, and  improved our water - "not that it was ever bad in the first place" (5-7 Live, RTE Radio 1, 13/07 and Morning Ireland 14/07). 
Our Environment Minister, Martin Cullen, puts in his oar for the defence, by claiming that "we are 98.8% compliant with EU directives". On water quality, he claims we are 84% complaint (I hope you can interpret these figures - I can't!). 
Good summary on http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3197305 

When the chips are down - the children eat them!  Only 6% of school children in the UK choose the "healthy" option of salad or vegetables with their school meals, opting for "chips with everything" instead. The survey, by the Dept. of Education and the Food Standards Agency, is described by the Soil Association as "outrageous". Read all about it at;  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/13/nchips13.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/13/ixhome.html
  
Hunting and smuggling organic produce The following are excerpts from correspondence between R.C. in Carlow and myself. "Thanks for the information on your website. I have been involved in 'hunting' for organic food for over 2 years now. One thing is clear: Ireland itself is coming a poor second to its European neighbours when it comes to organic food. Perhaps you have heard it all before, but it is worth repeating. The Irish Food Board markets Irish produce abroad with the slogan "Ireland - the food island". But our levels of organic produce, and estimates for the future, are not good. We produce so much food, but almost none of it is organic. If it was not for our local Superquinn, (who in my view are the only supermarket doing a good job in trying to source organic food) I think I would seriously think of moving back to the UK, where organic produce is so common now that it is even being sold in small (and I mean small) high street shops. Not to mention the burgeoning variety offered by the large supermarkets, giving a huge amount of choice to the consumer."
A few days later R.C. expanded a little "...because I work in the UK 3 days a week I have the benefit of being able to watch organic developments in both the UK and Irish market. Currently, due to lack of availability in Ireland, I am forced to bring over all kinds of food each week; for example, sweets, chocolate, biscuits (Tesco UK do 5-6 different types), fruit cordials (Robinsons, Rock’s), boneless, skinless, chicken breast (Sainsburys, Tesco UK), dry-cured ham (M&S), cereals (Nature's Own, Weetabix), stock cubes (Kallo), crisps (Simply Organic, Kettle Chips), apples (M&S), strawberries (M&S), grapes (M&S /Sainsburys) and best of all, organic raisins (Sundora - washed and ready to eat, a brilliant kid’s snack).
Of course I do use the local supermarkets whenever possible, particularly with items such as beans (Biona/Heinz/Suma), pasta (Roma/Bunalun), mince and round steak (Ballybrado) etc. I echo your sentiments regarding SuperValu : although the branding is difficult to spot they do try and keep up with organic developments and appear willing, like Superquinn, to try some new types of organic lines.
I can tell you, if I could afford to give up my day job then I too would start to grow my own. We have appx. 1 acre and at some stage in the future I really want to get stuck into potatoes and carrots, i.e. veggies which we can grow and store for a reasonable length of time.
We get though a lot of fruit, so it is a constant search through different shops to see what's out there. Generally apples and oranges can be got in most places now, but often the range is poor and the quality suspect. Some of the M&S fruit from the UK is really top class, and not a huge amount more in price than the non-organic equivalent. Of course, we have seen this trend already with organic milk in the UK."
RC goes on to call for a single Irish symbol and branding organisation to compete with the Soil Association, which he claims ".. is more familiar to Irish buyers than our own." He also advocates testing of organic products to reassure consumers that they are getting what they pay for.

ED. Feel free to comment on this. 

Thursday 8th July 2004 
Congratulations to Tony O'Malley and Stephanie Horton who got married last Saturday. The service took place in the historic, 12th century, Old St Mary's Church in Clonmel, Co.Tipperary and the reception was in the beautifully restored Kilshane House (http://www.tourismresources.ie/cht/kilshane.html) near Tipperary town. 
Tony, accomplished public art sculptor, is one of my closest friends and I was honoured to be his best man.
In keeping with the ideals of the couple, much of the food was local and organic. The excellent champagne, Clairette de Die (about which there is quite a romantic tale) was also organic.
I will be glad to give further information, links and online photos to personal emailers -  info1@planorganic.com  

In fairness...  As the trend for ethical shopping grows, more and more communities in the UK and Ireland declare themselves for the Fair Trade movement. Recently, in Skibbereen, a large market town here in West Cork, a committee was formed and is promoting "Skib" as a Fair Trade Town. Stealing a march on its rivals in the race for ethical purity, Superquinn*, Ireland, an up-market small chain of supermarkets, this week announced a new promotion of fair-traded products on which it will "reduce its normal profit". www.superquinn.ie   Beckons the hour (it's already arrived in Germany) when the ultra-PC shopper here will quiz the seller, "Is it organic? Is it fair-traded? Is it local?" Others will be added to the  questionaire over time, I'm sure, like, "Is it environmentally organic?"; "Is it pure organic?"; "What % of GMOs is in it?". Which raises further questions - should produce be certified organic from land beside a nuclear power plant, a pharmaceutical firm (remember Merck, Ireland and John Hanrahan), an aluminium plant (e.g. Limerick ), beside busy motorways, the Irish coast opposite Sellafield, by super and other dumps, sandwiched between intensive farmers, and indeed even here at Hungry Hill (where James Lovelock measured high levels of air pollution - from Italy!). Ahm, is there anyplace left?
Which all leads to an even further question - should we have a new food standard altogether? An organic star system? With five stars representing the ultimate in purity? Or a new term entirely - Superfood perhaps? 

*Superquinn is based mainly in Dublin; it has but three country stores, at Limerick, Clonmel and Kilkenny. Although the profit line is the bottom line with them as much as anyone else, they have always been a cut above the rest. They did a big promotion recently on Irish Craft Foods. Superquinn have their own large commercial organic farm in north Dublin.

In further fairness, it is only right to applaud Ballinree/Ballybrado* on one of their organic meat products as I have subjected them to some stick in the past. My son, Senan, always a tiny bit nervous when I hurriedly ask him "Get some meat for dinner" usually plumps for B/B on the grounds that if it isn't right in other ways, it is at least ethical and should keep the GOM happy. Last evening, late to the cooker having being seduced by near-success at sorting out the entrails of a tractor, and both of us starving, I had to do a rush job. I grunted at the B/B Organic Irish Round Steak and wondered how tough it was going to be when shown the frying pan rather than the pot. To my pleasant surprise, it cooked up like best striploin, and with pepper and my newly-picked garlic and potatoes (three varieties, black, red and yellow) was totally delicious. Well done sirs, Ballybrado/Baalinree (both labels appeared with exactly the same product in Super Valu recently), in your case Round Steak is not a pulverize-until -tender cut from an old cow that is the common supermarket offering. And there is a 25% reduction in B/B meat at Super Valu this week, bringing the price down to €11.34 per kilo. 
Now, their chocolate chip cookies.........

Ensuring fairness in scientific debate  Barry Mc Sweeney has just been appointed Chief Scientific Adviser to the Irish gov. Mc Sweeney, shares responsibility for the introduction of GMOs in Europe, where he insisted that "the consumer must have a choice". Believing that "there is no bad science, only negative benefits", he preaches about the precautionary principle, environmental and health concerns about GMOs and the difficulties of co-existence with organic and conventional crops. He  then turns around and advocates the introduction of GMOs and sees-in the first retail consumer food product, Bt 11sweetcorn. One suspects that his urging that GMOs in Europe "must be contantly reviewed" has more to do with a bias towards sweetening the pill, preparing the way for GM than rational scientific debate. Our new science adviser will in turn need some constant reviewing by our GM-watch people

Nude wraps  To cater for the young cubs of Ireland's Celtic Tiger economy that want their festivals without mud, nephew of dog-food maker and ex-Taoiseach (prime minister) Albert Reynolds, is to put on a "designer festival" in September. The Dublin restaurant, Nude, is to provide catering including "organic wraps".

Dead right - a green reformation  Hallelujah! Round Up will no longer be used to keep graveyards tidy if Church of England Archbishop Rowan Williams has his eco-friendly way. Scorched-earth spraying  with Monsanto's herbicide and others in church graveyards is one of the practices to be abandoned in a set of proposals designed to "green" religion and get away from the old ethos of domination over Nature. Graveyards are to become instead wildlife reserves and, looking beneath the surface, eco-burials in recyclable containers will ensure that resurrection and  the worms' way to the ducks and back to us (On Ilkly Moor Ba Tat and all that) will be speeded up. Apropos of which, have you written your epitaph yet? Mine; They laid him on a bed of ferns, though that was not his wish. The options were the funeral pyre or throw him to the fish.
Would someone nail these proposals to the door of the Vatican and let us have some green reformation in our lot too? 
Did you know that a used graveyard grows one foot of topsoil per century - if unsprayed that is?

Organic sun cream  As more and more negative stuff surfaces about what we put on our skin - the body's biggest organ ("what goes on, goes in") - people are looking for organic alternatives. This is the first organic sun cream that I have heard of - Sierra Rica. Check it out through www.greenpeople.co.uk and www.sierrarica.com. If you know of a similar product (not, repeat not, the meaningless "with natural ingredients" label) available in Ireland, I would be glad to hear of it. But not only are the ingredients in most sun lotions dubious, if not downright toxic, the claimed Uv protection factors of some major brands have been found to be substantially overated. 

The Long Rider My brother Steven, continues with his round-Ireland trek by horse www.pilgrimhorse.info  He is enjoying wonderful help, interest and hospitality in his tracing of the O'Sullivan Beare March. Today he crosses from north Cork into Limerick at Galbally. Monday he discovered, to his astonishment, the grave of one of his screen heroes, Oliver Reed. Tuesday, he was interviewed live on horseback by David Young of Cork's 103 FM - his third radio interview. Yesterday, following the signs as best he could, he discovered a bog hole in the Ballyhoura Hills and poor old Murphy sunk to his bellyband in the ooze. 
On our way back from the wedding on Sunday, we surprised him in a pub called The Dark Horse in Newmarket, the hospitable owner of which was also an O'Connor. Together with local horse-trainer, Michael Winters, and his uncle Ed (who offered shelter for horse and rider) and young American, Leah, we ended up at a traditional platform dance at Lahern Cross-Roads somewhere near Bweeng, which is near Nad, I think (if interested, use the largest Ordnance Survey map you can find - these are obscure, if lovely, parts of the country).
And to think that he was almost put off by local advice here in Castletownbere that the route was "not ready" and that "he should come back next year".
Fair enough, I suppose, the Beara/Breffni Greenways - incorporating the O'Sullivan March route - is a near-€12 million project stretching over 3 years, and many problems of signage, access and facilities are yet to be put in place. My brother is annoyed however that the information on the relevant websites is misleading and that an appeal for up-to-date information was initially met with blankness and discouragement. 
However that's all sorted now and he is being helped enormously by other local tourist organisations along the way.