Rewilding yourself, rewilding Ireland

Co. Kerry, Ireland, June 2023

Suddenly, everything gets wilder. The garden at Castlemaine announces itself with a renewed intensity as we barrel into Summer Solstice. It is possible, I see now, to become even more lush. Every day, there is a new discovery, a trinity of rose arbors, a spill of loganberries and an abundance of herbs like mint and oregano and sage.

One morning, I discover wild leeks about to drop their papery skins. The next, Swiss chard. Then, fava beans. I ask my airbnb host Helen if I can partake of what’s in the garden. “Yes, yes absolutely, it’s all organic and help yourself.” I look up recipes for fava beans.

When she arrives two days later, she brings raspberries and a red beet from her garden. “I’m glad you appreciate it,” she says of the untamed garden that is about to subsume the house. “Not everyone does.”

Helen tells me she lives in an 18-acre woodland and invites me for tea. A few days later, I find myself trooping up through long, thick grass between trunks of rowan, ash, beech, oak and hazelwood, dodging the thorns of blackberry bushes.

At left, Swiss chard, oregano, loganberries, red currants and fennel from the garden. At right, Loganberries in the garden at Castlemaine, Co. Kerry, Ireland.

Hazelwood, and ‘a fire in my head’

I’m following Helen and her dog up through the woodland, where the Irish department of forestry has planted thousands upon thousands…