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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
50 October-November 2025
A synthesis of Irish climate campaigns
and a primer for farmers on sustaining
higher incomes and nature restoration
ÉAMON RYAN REVIEWS ‘The Lie of the
Land’ by John Gibbons, Sandycove
(just published): “In the future people
will look back and thank him for what
he has done for Irish farmers, just like
his father before him”
J
ohn Gibbons grew up in the early
196os on a mixed farm in Kilkenny,
the tenth of twelve children. It was a
typical mixed farm from the time,
producing a wide variety of crops,
involving hard work and tight margins but in
tune with the natural world, before the advent
of more intensive methods denuded our land of
so much biodiversity.
His father was one of the leaders of the
National Farming Organisation, at a time when
it was most radical, fighting the Government to
get greater supports and higher prices for
farmers.
They took part in a three-week sit-in outside
Government Buildings and confronted the
authorities to the point where their home was
raided by the Special Branch and local guards.
As a young boy he remembers standing up for
his father by trying to stop them confiscating
the contents of the house.
Their farm changed to greater monoculture
just as others did and John moved on to a career
in journalism and then the business of
publishing specialist medical magazines. His
career would have continued in the usual heroic
but not public way, had it not been for the birth
of his first daughter, which coincided with him
reading ‘Something New Under the Sun: An
Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century
World’ by John R McNeill of Georgetown
University. The book outlined how CO2
emissions had increased seventeen-fold in the
last century and he describes how his “temporal
perspective shifted”. He entered a state of
shock, disbelief and then denial. If this was
indeed real, then how could it be possible that
A synthesis of everything he has
learned over the years since he
started campaigning, it settles
some old scores: RTÉ for pitting
one side against the other, as if
the science itself was on trial;
Bord Bia and Teagasc
nobody was talking about it?
It was not until a few years later on seeing the
film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ that he decided not
to be a bystander but to start taking action. In
no time he had his own slide deck explaining
the science in a clear and concise manner. He
soon became one of the most powerful
advocates on the need for climate action in
Ireland. In the intervening twenty years he has
stood on the climate front-line with real passion,
commitment and well-honed arguments.
The same young boy that confronted the
guards at his home was just as fearless in
addressing the naysayers, purveyors of
disinformation and business people with vested
interests. He never shied from going onto hard
platforms whether it was on drive time radio,
primetime tv or in local debates right across the
country.
This book is a synthesis of everything he has
learned over those years. It settles some old
scores, especially involving those public bodies
that should have known better about the reality
of climate change in this world. RTÉ gets
particular attention as for so many years it saw
the issue as a chance to pit one side against the
other, as if the science itself was on trial. Bord
Bia and Teagasc come in for similar criticism for
their apparent control of the state’s food policy,
which served the profitability of the large food
companies rather than the sustainable use of
our land.
The book does give short updates on some of
the latest science, including the risks of certain
tipping points such as the switch-o of the
North Atlantic overturning circulation system.
However, it focuses more on the solutions that
are going to be needed to turn things around.
Of these he has some more positive stories to
tell, outlining where there has been some
progress, but not sparing the lash when it
comes to calling out the inaction and inertia that
still characterise so much of our climate
response.
It is compelling when he draws from his own
personal experience, telling the story of having
to carry his daughters and dash across his own
Dun Laoghaire road, for the lack of proper road
crossings; or the story of his own up-and-down
experience with an electric vehicle with the
battery power down in the single figures and no
charger in site.
Where the book is strongest, however, is
when he returns to the land and envisages what
can be done to both restore nature and provide
a good income for the next generations of
farmers. It is in his blood and DNA. In the future
people will look back and thank him for what he
has done for Irish farmers, just like his father
before him but in his own very dierent way.
Éamon Ryan is former leader of the Green Party
in Ireland
ENVIRONMENT
