Dara McAnulty. Diary of a Young Naturalist

Abstract

On the 20th August in 2018, 15-year-old Greta Thunberg sat for the first time outside the Swedish parliament demanding action be taken to tackle the climate crisis. The day before that, 14-year-old Dara McAnulty was walking through Tollymore forest when he came across ‘something discarded but utterly beautiful: a nest’ (118). He describes in his diary how he carried the nest with him, marvelling at the intricacy of the craftsmanship, before reluctantly setting it back down on the forest floor to provide shelter and the possibility of food for a nearby garden cross spider. This entry by McAnulty—a conservationist and environmental activist from Nothern Ireland—appears just over half-way through the book. The first and last diary entries are exactly one year apart, marking the end of Winter and the beginning of Spring, and in McAnulty’s mind, the midway point separating his late childhood from his adulthood.