‘Ireland’s version of the Amazon’ – no celebrities required for new documentary on Kerry’s natural beauty

The Donegal-born marine biologist, zoologist and coastal guide admits he is a reluctant voice on camera, but director Katrina Costello was persuasive.

Mr McGinley is one of a number of west-coast-based scientists that appear in Ms Costello’s new documentary on Kerry’s natural history, the first episode of which is broadcast on RTÉ One tonight.

Entitled Kerry: Tides of Time and narrated by the actor Brendan Gleeson, the two-part series aims to tell a “rich and multi-dimensional story of the Kerry landscape, from its earliest origins, deep in the geological past, right up to the present day”.

It draws on local expertise, rather than parachuting in celebrities, and contributors include Connemara archaeologist Michael Gibbons, environmentalist Mary Reynolds, botanist Dr Therese Higgins, and author and Skellig Michael guide Catherine Merrigan.

Sheep farmer Seanie O’Donohue, ecologist Susan O’Donoghue, archaeologist Billy Mag Fhloinn and Barry O’Donoghue, resident of the Stack’s Mountain townland, also participate.

Based in Corca Dhuibhne, Billy Mag Fhloinn is married to singer Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, who is the vocalist on the musical score composed by Bradley Ayres.

The summit of Ireland’s highest mountain, Carrauntoohil and the tetrapod tracks on Valentia Island, Co Kerry, are among locations that Mr McGinley shares his knowledge of.

He says it is “not impossible” that we are all descended from this marine creature – the four-footed, mammal-like reptile that evolved before the rise of the dinosaur and left its footprints on Kerry rock about 385 million years ago.

“A wild thing to take on board,” Mr McGinley says.

For Carrauntoohil, the team was lucky to have a clear day for filming, even if it was one of the coldest of last year.

A “ragged and complex landscape evolving from 400 million-year-old rocks” is explored by archaeologist Michael Gibbons.

He explains that the environmental damage done by Bronze Age peoples helped to create the bogs that are now a valuable carbon sink.

The bogs and rivers are “Ireland’s Amazon”, Mr O’Donoghue says, speaking of his passion for hen harriers, numbers of which are declining.

Mary Reynolds is particularly critical of the extensive acreage of fast-growing spruce in Kerry, and the damage done in cutting drains in bogs that releases all the carbon, while also spraying chemicals and planting right up against streams.

“Spruce doesn’t hold carbon the way an old oak would,” she says. She believes Kerry is a potential “flagship” landscape for the return of native species.

“If we could restore a massive amount of woodlands, there is hope…how much joy would that bring into our lives,” Ms Reynolds says.

Ms Costello, of Silver Branch films, had worked with some of the contributors on her previous two-part documentary, The Burren: Heart of Stone, also narrated by Brendan Gleeson.

The camerawoman, director and producer, who specialises in cultural and natural history, has worked with director of photography John Brown since 2011. Her documentaries have won a number of international awards.

Living in Clare, she said she was delighted to secure a commission from RTÉ for her own interpretation of Kerry, heading there in her Hymer campervan and contacting experts who had personal connections to the landscape.

Inevitably, such is the passion these people have for the area that the focus is “more political”, she notes, and her contributors took her outside of national park areas to remote rainforests, lakes and little-known hillscapes.

“It was filmed over several summers, and last summer was particularly challenging as we were lucky to get a day where we had four hours without rain,” she says.

Kerry: Tides of Time, narrated by Brendan Gleeson, will be broadcast on RTÉ One tonight and next Sunday at 6.30pm