Kilmessan man doing his bit to save the world

Paddy Gorman loves the outdoors; the good life. He has always lived in the countryside and always will but the Kilmessanman believes the nature he loves is under serious threat and, he tells Jimmy Geoghegan, he is determined to do something about it 

He doesn’t dress like Batman, Spiderman or Supermen, those never-say-die characters who have all done their bit to save the world at one time or another.

Neither does he resemble David Attenborough all that much (and with his accent that is as much a part of the Royal County as the Hill of Tara he doesn’t sound like him either) but Kilmessanman Paddy Gorman has a lot in common with the world’s best-known naturalist. 

Right at the top of the list is a simple love and appreciation of nature. Like Attenborough, Gorman is acutely aware of the problems the earth faces - and for him nothing highlights the plight of the natural world more than the threat that hangs over the humble bee. And to try and highlight the problems facing our little buzzing friend he has created what he calls the ‘Bee Wise Garden’ - a collection of trees, plants, and of course bees, he aims to show off to the general public.

The plight of the humble bumble bee is a concern for Paddy Gorman. 

 “In Ireland alone before 2030, 30 per cent of the bees in Ireland will be extinct. That’s only 11 years away. We only have 100 different types of bees in Ireland, that’s a third of them gone,” he says to highlight his point adding that the bee is essential to pollinating many of the plants that go into providing food for the human race. 

Paddy’s Bee Wise Garden can be found beside his home in Crerogue a few miles outside Kilmessan. 

He loves the outdoors; the good life. He has always lived in the countryside and always will. Talking with him even for a short while you get the impression that he would rather go to the North Pole than live or work in a city, cut off from his beloved bees, birds, trees, hedges and fields; what poet Patrick Kavanagh described as “every blooming thing.”

“I love being out there in nature, I would hate to work for anybody, I did that for a few years but didn’t like it, I prefer to work on my own, with nature beside me,” he says. 

 

Paddy Gorman with some of the works of art made from bees' wax. 

However Gorman also believes nature is under threat, serious threat - and he wants to do something about it. He points to “small bugs, insects, beetles, bees” and how they are finding it more difficult to live on an earth besieged by climate change and other serious threats such as humans’ insatiable need for more and more land to feed more and more mouths. 

“They are saying how in 2050 there is going to be another billion people in the world. How are we going to feed them? If we keep going at the rate we are going at we won’t be able to feed the people who are on it now, never mind the extra billion,” he says. 

“You look at the food chain, it starts at the smallest and goes up to the top, where us humans are. We will be the last to face extinction but we won’t notice all the little lads, the bugs, the bees, that are being made extinct along the way,” he says. “There’s 40 per cent of creatures like that on the edge of extinction, they are at the bottom of the food chain yet they are essential.”

MISSION

A married man and a father of two Paddy Gorman says he’s “on a mission” to educate people on the treasures of nature - and what can be done to save the world - and the Bee Wise Garden is one way of doing just that.
“You could say I’m on a mission but this is not for me or my wife or even our kids, it’s for their kids because they won’t have a world the way things are going,” he insists. 

“If you listen to Sir David Attenborough he reckons that in a couple of decades we will be on the brink of extinction as human beings, we won’t have enough food to feed us, the world will have changed.” 
It might be stretching things a little to assert that Paddy Gorman is out to save the world yet he believes that because of the fast pace of modern life people don’t have the time to fully appreciate nature and savour its beauties - and he’s doing his bit to change that. 

It’s one of the main reasons, he says, why he has given over part of his small farm to what he terms the ‘Bee Wise Garden’ project; five acres of trees, shrubs and plants which is aimed at giving nature a boost.
His five acres are open to the public and during the coming weeks and months he will be staging a series of open days in his very own Garden of Eden that will include walks and talks on topics such as the ‘Bird Next Workshop’, the ‘Bughouse Talk’ and the ‘Story of Honey.’ 

When the Meath Chronicle called out to Paddy’s place to investigate he was more than happy to lead us on a walk through a little forest of tress and plants of all kinds. It looks a random collection of flora but nothing could be further from  the truth. The idea is to have something flowering throughout the year.

 At the end of the garden is a place where some bees are housed. He likes working with bees and is worried by the destruction of habitats. And if the bee is suffering so is the rest of nature.

 To emphasise his point he shows you a giant aerial map of the Kilmessan area that he has on one of the walls in his workshop. “You look at how on so many farms so many hedgerows are cut back; cut to the last,” he stresses. 

“There are no real blocks of wild areas, Dunsany, for example, I always thought had a lot of wild areas but in fact you have very little given over to nature, you have a few blocks of trees here and there but the rest are fields used for growing corn.”
 

FARMING

Paddy Gorman is the youngest in a family of 11; he grew up on the land he currently lives on with his wife and their two children. He describes how at just 15 he was given the responsibility to run the farm working for a time alongside his father Paddy senior. 

Making homes for bees and bugs of all kinds are part of Paddy Gorman's unique garden. 

For some years young Paddy sought to run the dairy operation on the family’s 35-acre holding with other land rented however, as the industry changed to ever bigger operations, the Gormans opted out of the sector. 
“I had nearly 50 cows at one stage, I was renting a lot of land, so there was a lot of money going out - it wasn’t sustainable.” 

Paddy junior worked in the building sector for a time but the economic collapse of 2008 put paid to that. Life changed in other ways. “I decided I’d stay at home to mind our children,” he says feeling he’s fortunate to have that time with them. “I wouldn’t take a job for 10,000 euro a week working in Dublin, travelling up and down every day. Childhood passes in the blink of an eye.”

For a time Paddy ran allotments on his farm a but that project too fell victim to the harsh winds of economic change. Then in 2012 he started to plant the trees that now make up part of a cherished project; the Bee Wise Garden.

To help nature Paddy says that people don’t have to radically change their lifestyles; if they have a garden (no matter the size) they can do their bit. “I try to remind people of how easy it can be done - and it is very simple, plant a few shrubs in the corner, or you could let another corner go wild for habitat for different animals, bees and bugs. All people have to do is to change things slightly and it would improve everything.”
While he says he’s no David Attenborough - or Superman for that matter - he’s trying to make a difference. And like Frank Sinatra he’s trying to do it his way.

The Bee Wise Garden Open Days will be held on: Sundays 7th April (Bughouse Talk, 11am), 14th April (Bughouse Workshop, 11am); 21st April (Easter Egg Hunt 2pm); 30th June (Story of Honey, 2pm); 28th June  (Story of Honey, 2pm); 25th August (Story of Honey 2pm); 22nd September (Storey of Honey, 2pm). Also available for group bookings and school tours.