Photo of County Fermanagh on Ireland.com
Photo by Dara McAnulty on Twitter

Dara McAnulty

Naturalist and Writer

POSITION

Naturalist and Writer

COUNTRY

Northern Ireland

SCENE

Environment

SOCIAL

Twitter

What makes Dara McAnulty a Global Shaker?

Dara McAnulty is a 15-year-old naturalist, activist and writer from Northern Ireland. His book, Diary of a Young Naturalist, will be released in June 2020.

Something you see time and again with climate activists is their raw compassion — an unshakeable belief in the beauty of everything, from brooks and streams to forests and fellow individuals. A compassion often lost and disregarded by older, supposedly more aware people.

Dara’s genuine warmth for the local environment, birds and his family comes through in  images and short videos he posts to a substantial following on social media.

This October, he became the youngest ever recipient of the RSPB medal, for services to conservation. David Attenborough lists among the distinguished former recipients of the award.

McAnulty is very open about his mental health, writing that his upcoming book – – set to be released on Little Toller  — never seemed possible, because bullies had always tried to tear him down for being autistic. McAnulty has instead honed his passion for the natural environment and for words, using nature to calm his anxiety — and empower him to overcome huge personal barriers, such as captivating a large audience at a specially convened ‘In Conversation’ event.

He regularly tweets images and videos of critters found on walks, to a large audience — a recent tweet of a Pale Tussock Moth caterpillar had 1.5k likes. He’s appeared on timeless UK TV show Blue Peter. He’s also an activist for local causes, such as a campaign to reject Highway England’s “catastrophic road building scheme,” which could endanger birds including the yellowhammer, linnet, lapwing and skylark.

Tags: Activism, Climate crisis, Northern Ireland

Last updated: April 2, 2020