Roughing It 'Green Style'

Sustainable fun on the Emerald Isle

by HADANI DITMARS

When you hear the word “sustainability,” what springs to mind? Dutiful, labour-intensive, ecologically correct activities? Earnest but dull lifestyle choices? Anorak-wearing, styleless prophets of doom, preaching environmental apocalypse?

Such stereotypes are not without foundation, but a recent trip to Ireland convinced me that sustainability can actually be, well, kind of fun.

Of course, if you’re thinking “green” and “fun,” the Emerald Isle is a natural choice for all kinds of reasons. If a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, then a pint of Guinness (not to mention a bit of Irish wit and charm) adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the whole “green” experience.

I discovered this while staying at a friend’s “eco-cottage” in the wilds of West Cork, where green design and lifestyle have been part of the traditional way for centuries.

My pal Colm, who lives in the country and commutes to Cork city for his job with an environmental engineering firm, lives in a 19th-century cottage. Surrounded by rolling green fields, neo­lithic ruins, and ancient stone circles, the setting is breathtaking. But before you think “romantic country idyll,” consider this—the cottage has no central heating.

That’s right. No central heating, even in the midst of a draughty, miserably wet Irish winter. But as Colm, who has spent the better part of two years carefully restoring the once-dilapidated cottage bit by bit using only “green” materials, pointed out during my mid-November visit: “If you’d come last year, there would have been no roof.”

Although he views central heating as a bit of a luxury—outside of, say, subarctic climes—he is looking into a geo-thermal heating option and hopes to reinforce the walls with cob. Colm has an acre of land; he chops his own wood and hauls his own water from a well. Heat is provided by a cast-iron stove, fuelled by wood as well as anthracite, a less smoky and arguably “greener” alternative to coal.

Of course, he grows his own organic vegetables and sticks to a meatless diet, with plenty of grains and legumes. In short, Colm is living the eco dream. He is, alternately, what you might call committed to sustainability or rather eccentric, depending on your point of view. If this isn’t sounding like too much fun yet, stick with it; we’re almost there.

A highlight of my stay was a trip to the garden on a dark, windy night—complete with rain slickers and a flashlight—to dig potatoes out of the ground and then prepare them for dinner (the quintessential Irish experience, I’m sure.)

By this time, I was gradually adjusting to the rather spartan regime: going to sleep with all (and I mean all) of my clothes on plus a woolly scarf and hat, rising early in the morning to chop wood and light the stove (admittedly, Colm did most of that), and learning how to prepare organic root vegetables a dozen different ways.

Colm’s one concession to modernity is a washing machine. He has an outdoor clothesline, but since it rains in Ireland as much as in Vancouver, hanging undergarments over the stove to dry soon became second nature.

I didn’t realize how much I would miss the whole eco-cottage experience until a few days later, when I was obliged to spend the night in a spanking new downtown hotel room, designed in an anonymous style with invariably toxic materials. I found it hard to relax, even with the flat-screen television offering a dozen different channels and the exotic room service with fusion cuisine.

I secretly longed for boiled potatoes and turnip soup, for the simplicity of the eco-cottage, for the quiet and peace and fresh air, for the dodgy phone and dial-up internet lines that meant a trip to the neighbours was easier than high-tech communication.

I realized that the cottage, not my hotel room, was the real luxury, affording me enough time, space, and companionship to feel fully human. And that there was something downright hedonistic about the taste of fresh vegetables from the garden, the smell of earth, and the scent of wood smoke, not to mention the satisfaction of having coaxed it all yourself.

Of course, we can’t all live in the Irish countryside. But back in Vancouver, as I reach for the organic greens at my local market, or take time to walk along the beach to an appointment rather than driving, the simple pleasures of the “green life” become apparent. Sustainability can be a delight. It’s the grim alternative of a ruined environment that’s not fun.

When writer and journalist Hadani Ditmars is not plotting ways to escape to the Irish countryside and dig potatoes, she travels to Middle East hotspots, searching for that one perfect organic pomegranate.

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