“Ireland, on the far western edge of Europe, was never conquered by the Roman Empire. This allowed traditional beliefs and practices, including respect for the land as animate and conscious, to persist. … Ireland’s pre-Christian system of Brehon Law has been described as an Irish form of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), a term typically reserved for Indigenous cultures.”
– Mary Gomes and Tina Fields in the MOTH
In late June, just after Movement Rights left London Climate week, co-founders Shannon Biggs and Casey Camp Horinek and Indigenous Programs Director Julia Horinek were invited to Ireland to visit communities working to recognize the Rights of Nature.
From the moment we arrived, everything shifted, and our hearts were open to the beauty of the Emerald Isle.
As Julia says, “We didn’t just see Ireland, we could feel her. She sings her ancient songs, her Earth feels alive and her water flows with spirit. Ireland’s people hear her call to protect what is sacred and they are answering.”
Although our visit was brief—just three days, we traveled across the country from Dublin to Galway and up to Belfast in Northern Ireland to visit a number of Irish communities and activists moving Rights of Nature forward. Casey spoke in the midst of a huge thunderstorm at the Wild Atlantic Impact forum In Galway (details here), and our whole delegation spoke at Queens University School of Law in Belfast.
Everywhere we went, we noted how the Irish have an understanding of the human relationship with the natural world that closely aligns with traditional Indigenous cosmology. As Mary Gomes, a friend and scholar who helped us develop our itinerary for this journey and her co-author Tina Fields have said, “Ireland stands as a reminder that ostensibly non-Indigenous societies can have deep precolonial cultural roots and that, without engaging in cultural appropriation, we can draw from these in our journey to become naturalized to place.”
Donegal, Ireland adopted a Rights of Nature motion in 2021, as well as Northern Ireland councils in Belfast, Derry and Strabane. In 2022, IIreland’s Parliamentary has recommended a national referendum on Rights of Nature as a constitutional amendment. If passed, Ireland could become the first country in Europe to recognize Rights of Nature.
We made this journey as an “advance delegation” to see how Movement Rights might deepen our connection with the people of Ireland seeking to move RIghts of Nature forward and how we might learn from each other. We have been invited back and look forward to next steps on this journey.
