Pat Corrigan is far from alone in going to work in Dublin every day, as he has done for over 30 years. The difference from most of the rest of us is that Pat’s place of work is in one of the city’s wildest, most beautiful spots – Bull Island.
Pat works for Dublin City Council’s Parks Department and it’s his job to manage the North Bull Island nature reserve with all of its rich flora and fauna. It’s the most ecologically protected piece of land in Ireland, says Pat, covered by EU as well as Irish law.
“We have many thousands of wading birds and wild fowl that come down from Arctic regions to spend the winter with us here on the island,” he adds. “The upper and lower salt marsh is a very interesting place as well as roosting areas for these birds.
“The island is a very important area for botanics too; there are some very, very rare plants here.”
It’s not just plants and animals that Pat looks after, but people too. He says that the island can attract as many as 10,000 visitors per day, and 20,000 young people each year on trips organised by their schools and colleges. That’s one of his favourite parts of the job.
“The great thing is the amount of them who have an interest in the environment and will come to me after a class or a lecture and tell me how much they would like to work in conservation,” he says.
“Especially in second and third-level education, it's great when students come back to visit us here on the island, and to see how well they're doing in their own career or in conservation or habitat management.”
Most of all, though, Pat loves his working environment. As he says, many people would love to be able to work in this kind of environment and still be in the confines of Dublin city.
“I think I have one of the best offices in the whole of Dublin,” he says. “It's just an absolute dream to work here and to protect the habitats and manage the habitats as we do.
“My favourite thing about the whole job is that there are no two days the same. Still, even after 32 years, we are finding new species of plant on the island here - some of them that were thought to be extinct in Ireland for many, many years.
“That's what keeps the job fresh: we don't know what we're going to find from day to day.”
