IRISH TIMES: Birdwatching in Ireland has changed remarkably in the past century and a quarter – for good and bad

Authors of seminal 1900 book The Birds of Ireland would be surprised by species’ decline, extinction and recovery.

One hundred and twenty-five years ago this year, a seminal book was published with the simple title The Birds of Ireland. Its authors, Richard J Ussher and Robert Warren, had produced the first systematic account of all birds known in Ireland up to the end of the 19th century. The results of their extensive research show a stark contrast with the birdlife found in Ireland today.

The book was published in 1900, when Ireland was slowly recovering from the shock of the Great Famine some 50 years earlier. Poverty was widespread and most people still scraped a living from small patches of farmland. Ussher however, was from the landed class. His family home near Dungarvan, Co Waterford, was at the centre of a large estate that he had inherited from his father. Warren was a keen birdwatcher living in Co Mayo and they were both part of the Victorian craze for recording rare species and collecting specimens.

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