Wilder Ways: Lisa Clancy & Sean Lysaght
Monday, 6th October 2025
7.30pm
Hosted by David Brennan
Location: Festival Dome, Bridge Lane, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, F23 PN20
***UPDATE: Due to unforeseen circumstances, Harrison Gardner will no longer be able to join us on Monday evening. However, the Wilder Ways event will proceed as planned with the wonderful Lisa Clancy and Sean Lysaght in the festival dome at 7.30pm***
Authors Lisa Clancy and Seán Lysaght with their books, Insect Portraits; and Unveiling the Sun
Join us for an inspiring evening exploring nature, place, and sustainability. Photographer Lisa Clancy reveals the surprising charm and complexity of Ireland’s insect life. Poet and naturalist Seán Lysaght reflects on the deep connection between self and landscape in the west of Ireland. Together, they offer a rich, creative celebration of biodiversity and our place within it. This promises to be a thoughtful, hopeful gathering for anyone who cares about the environment.
About Lisa Clancy
Lisa Clancy is an insect photographer and nature enthusiast based in Galway City.
Her passion for the natural world began early and guided her academic journey, starting with a BSc in Zoology from the University of Galway, followed by an MSc in Biological Photography and Imaging from Nottingham University, and culminating in a PhD in Insect Behaviour from Aberystwyth University in Wales in 2015.
Lisa currently works as a research integrity manager at Compuscript in Shannon.
Insect Portraits is a captivating collection of portrait-style photographs that reveals the remarkable ‘personalities’ of (mostly) Irish insects and offers a glimpse into the fascinating world of scientific research using these extraordinary creatures. From bomb-sniffing moths to bacteria threatening to feminise entire insect populations, and flies that have lost their ability to hunt yet still need to present a dead insect as a nuptial gift – along with the ingenious, almost comical strategies they’ve developed to overcome this evolutionary misstep – this collection promises to transform how you see insects, if you’re not already a fan.
Shot in the stunning Burren region of County Clare and surrounding counties, this book celebrates the natural world while unveiling the rich, often surprising, and entertaining lives of insects – creatures so easily overlooked.
At a time of devastating biodiversity collapse, it serves as a powerful reminder of the value of these misunderstood beings, nuisance as they can sometimes be, by showcasing their charm and unexpected lighter side.
About Seán Lysaght
For over twenty years, Seán Lysaght has kept a journal recording wildlife, weather, landscape and the outdoor life in his adopted county. Unveiling the Sun: A Mayo Journal is a compilation of these entries into a single calendar year, from the precious crucible of January’s winter light, through the idyll of midsummer, to the keen focus of shortening autumn days.
As in his earlier books, Eagle Country and Wild Nephin, Seán celebrates the seashores, bogs and forests of north-west Mayo as well as the living world in his own locality near Westport.
The whole builds up to what Robert Macfarlane has called a ‘topography of self’, where, as Seán puts it, ‘A cherished landscape becomes a realm of potential not only for what it adds to general knowledge, but for what it reveals in ourselves.’
Seán Lysaght is a poet and prose writer who has been living near Westport for over thirty years. Originally from Limerick, he taught for many years at the Castlebar campus of GMIT (now ATU).
Gallery Press has published seven collections of his poems and translations, including The Mouth of a River (2007), Carnival Masks (2014), New Leaf (2022) and Selected Poems (2010). He has been hailed by Thomas McCarthy, in Dublin Review of Books, as ‘one of the most accomplished and established voices of his poetic generation.’ His biography of the naturalist Robert Lloyd Praeger was published by Four Courts Press in 1998.