An expert tells me about water, Rivers and data centres

For Science Week 2026, I speak to Professor Fiona Regan who is a chemist and Director of DCU’s Water Institute, whose research focuses on water pollution, environmental monitoring and protecting rivers and marine ecosystems. Check out scienceweek dot ie Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:02Speaker 01

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• 0:13Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 02

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• 1:16Speaker 02

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• 1:32Blindboy Boatclub?

  Surrender your tennis racket to the bareback pen pal you windswept Vincent's. Welcome to the Blind By Podcast. If this is your first podcast, consider going back to an earlier episode to familiarize yourself with the lore of this podcast. And if you're a regular listener, a 10-foot Declan, a steaming Quiva, you know the crack. I'm speaking to you once again from the past. This is a pre-recorded episode for Science Week 2026. A wonderful event that takes place all over Ireland, which democratizes science. So go to scienceweek.ie to find out what events are happening in your locale. All going well.

• 2:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  You are listening to this on Wednesday, the 11th of November. But I'm recording this on Wednesday, the 4th of November. And the reason I want to make that clear is Donald Trump. Donald Trump and the Republicans have just lost the midterm elections, which is wonderful news because

• 2:39Blindboy Boatclub?

  the first two years of Trump's presidency have been fucking absolutely awful and terrifying for everybody in the entire world. The US has drifted into

• 2:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  almost like fascist autocracy. Like ICE agents in masks, shooting innocent people in the streets. No one's gone to jail. No, there's been no accountability. It's just been forgotten about and the next mad thing happens. They've tried to pursue people with anti-capitalist ideas. They tried to pursue these people as terrorists. It's been fairly bad and it's been unprecedented. And I'm noticing the... It's difficult for me to even recall all the terrible shit that's happened because it's been so overwhelming and there's been so much of it. And Trump and the Republicans losing the midterm today or last week as you listen to this.

• 3:38Blindboy Boatclub?

  Importantly, it means that that final two years of Trump's presidency, he's neutered. It's going to be very difficult for him to do incredibly crazy shit. Cause all the Democrats who now control the Senate and the House of Representatives, they're not going to let him do crazy shit. They'll make it very difficult. I mean, the fucking war in Iran, like I just forgot that one there. Everyone's feeling a little bit of hope. The hope that I'm feeling, it's nice to know. It's nice to know that so many, so many people in the United States are pushing back, are kicking back, that the majority of people are just, no, this is not what we want. We don't like this. We're not into this fascist shit.

• 4:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  Those ICE agents wandering the streets in masks, pulling people out of cars and shooting people. That feels like authoritarian fascist intimidation, which it is. I'm also happy that fucking Elon Musk spent 300 or 400 million and it didn't work. That feels like a sea change moment. It feels like change. However, I don't know what Trump is going to do tomorrow or the day after. Is he going to drop a giant bomb on Iran? Is there going to be January 6th style riots? I can't imagine the next week is going to be very normal. So that's why I'm letting you know, this is a pre-recorded podcast. And if Donald Trump and the Republicans have done something utterly mad,

• 5:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  that's why I'm not mentioning it or commenting it. I'm speaking to you from the past. And I'm speaking to you from the past because I planned out my tour properly this time.

• 5:20Blindboy Boatclub?

  I don't know if you remember, but last year, I've only ever missed one podcast episode. I've never missed a week. That has never happened. But last year, I missed a Wednesday and I had to post on a Thursday instead. It's the only time it's ever happened in nine years of this podcast. And it's because I'd just come off tour. I'd taken too much on. I didn't plan properly and I especially did not plan for autistic burnout, which is something that happens to me at the end of every tour that I do. Now I'm much more aware of it. Two weeks of being on the road, different venue every day, no routines, small talk with loads of different people.

• 6:04Blindboy Boatclub?

  When the adrenaline is flowing and I have gigs to get to and things to do. I'm brilliant at it. But what I really noticed last year in particular, and it's something about minding my, my mental health as an autistic person. When the tour ends, I'm not on the road. I don't have gigs and I get back to my space at home where I can actually just relax and my nervous system feels safe. Then I just fucking crash. It's not just a tiredness and an exhaustion. It's, it's a fairly extreme brain fog. I've become incredibly forgetful. Difficulty reading clocks. No eye contact with anybody. Difficulty communicating. I've become more autistic.

• 6:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  I used to call this depression. Before I knew what it was, there was a bit of depression, you see, because I'd feel great shame. Shame about... Look, it's already happened, lads. Yesterday I lost my keys. House keys, key to my locker in work where my laptop is. Now there's a U-lock stuck on my bike and I don't know how to get it off. Where are my keys? I don't know. I probably left them in a shop somewhere. I have an app called a Tile that let me know where my, the last place where my keys were because of this shit. But I turned off my Bluetooth. So my keys are gone and I'm greatly inconvenienced. And that, that's classic autistic burnout.

• 7:32Blindboy Boatclub?

  Little forgetfulness, a forgetfulness about something very, very important. But before I knew that was burnout, I didn't know what the fuck that was. And I would experience great, great shame. Now shame, shame is that emotion. It's the sudden contraction of self. Shame is...

• 7:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  When you feel shame, it's, it's just, it's the worst feeling. It is the worst of the emotions. It's the one that the other, other emotions step in to stop us from feeling. But shame is that sudden sinking feeling of I am a worthless person. You know it's shame when it's, it's an evaluation of who you are. It's not, I've just done something bad. It's

• 8:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  because I've done something bad, I am bad. When one of your actions or behaviors feels like you've just revealed to yourself how you truly are. The really irresponsible act of losing my keys becomes proof that I'm pretty useless and pathetic. So I've lost my keys. Huge inconvenience. But shame steps in for me because I've been struggling with this my whole life. Shame steps in and goes, I have done it again, you worthless piece of shit. You thought you were an adult, didn't you? You thought you had your shit together. You thought you were someone who can pay bills and exist as a normal person in the real world,

• 9:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  doing normal things, responsible things. But you've just proven again that you can't, you thick fuck. You've lost your keys again or you've lost your wallet again. Cause you can't be trusted to be an adult or to be a normal person. And that'd be my internal dialogue. Now you might be listening to that thinking, Jesus Christ, Blind By, that's a bit harsh there after losing your fucking keys. It is incredibly harsh, but I've been doing shit like that my whole life. So there's, there's a lot of pain and trauma for me attached to the incredibly careless and irresponsible things I do when burnout hits me. The shame kicks in when I'm... Autistic people, lots of people are forgetful. Lots of people fuck things up.

• 9:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  When it happens to a neurodivergent person, Jordan Barnout, we're confronted with, how the fuck did, I don't know how that happened. I have no idea how it happened. I put every preventative measure in place for it not to happen. Like I have an app called Tile to stop this shit happening. It's the powerless, utterly powerless feeling of, doesn't matter how much I prepare, doesn't matter how much I practice, this shit will find a way to surprise me. The shame spiral that would bring on feelings of depression. It's very difficult to have a good day, to feel good about yourself when you're exhausted and wondering.

• 10:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  If you're developing some type of dementia, so I used to call this depression. Now I know it's called burnout and it's very simple. When neurodivergent people, autistic people in particular, are placed into situations where we have to mask, perform neurotypically for a long period of time, you'll hit a wall. And when you hit that wall, you lose executive functioning skills. And that means planning task initiation, remembering your fucking keys, not putting your keys down in the shop or wherever the fuck I put them down and walking away from them. I think I got distracted by a magazine.

• 11:09Blindboy Boatclub?

  I think that's what I think I went into a shop in the airport and saw a headline or a magazine and put the keys down. And then I got distracted by the cover of a book or something and then just walked away from the keys. So that's burnout. How am I going to get out of burnout? By having a pre-recorded podcast this week, minimizing my cognitive load, not putting pressure on myself to be doing grand abstract thinking or research and then creating a few days to hang out with my family, people who don't expect eye contact, who accept me for who I am, who don't expect me to perform, who know that I'm an autistic eccentric

• 11:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  lunatic, who likes to pace up and down and rub his hands together all day long and for that to be okay. And then when I'm not doing that, the things that really, really helped me to get out of burnout is gently trying things which require executive functioning skills, answering all my unanswered emails, unsubscribing from spam, going into my email inbox and all of those recurring emails from a website I signed up to two years ago, just going, today I'm going to unsubscribe from 20 of them. Cleaning my desktop on my fucking laptop, collecting my receipts from when I was on

• 12:37Blindboy Boatclub?

  tour to give to my accountants, hovering my rug, taking the time to notice that my workspace is cluttered, so I unclutter it and just small, tiny tasks where I'm deliberately initiating the task, doing it and then getting a lovely feeling of completion, replacing all my keys, that's what I'm going to be doing. Calmly and rationally looking at the gigantic inconvenience that I've created for myself by losing my fucking keys, but viewing it as just that. Catching myself if I'm catastrophizing, oh my God, you're going to have a U-lock stuck onto your bicycle and you won't be able to get it off. So fucking what?

• 13:20Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'd get another U-lock and I probably won't have it. There probably is a solution somewhere, I just have to find it. Oh no, you don't have a house key. I'd get another one cut. And then the big one is actually noticing the fear of change. Your keys, the bunch of keys and your wallet and your phone, these very important things that we carry around with ourselves all the time, they actually become safety objects. Without even knowing it, they become safety objects. Every time I reach my hand and pat into the place in my bag where my keys are supposed to be, every time I feel those keys jingling, I get a tiny feeling of safety. Same with my wallet, same with my phone.

• 14:04Blindboy Boatclub?

  But then when I lose these things and I don't get that feeling, like the feeling I got when it's like, fuck, where are my keys? They're gone. I felt deeply unsafe. I felt unsafe and lost over what is just an inconvenience. It's a pain in the arse. That's it. Viewing the key situation in that rational way and then going, let's solve the problem. Let's get new keys. So following through on all those small little tasks and getting the tiny reward, a little confidence boost of completing them, that gets me out of burnout and then I slowly begin to feel capable again. So that's why this week's podcast is pre-recorded.

• 14:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'm, I'm doing something kind for future me, which is, that's a useful way that I view tasks and planning, especially when I struggle with them. I'm thinking of me in two days' time and saying to myself, Jesus, that'd be really unfair if I burdened him with the pressure of research and writing and recording an entire podcast episode, especially when he's struggling. And that's really useful when you're thinking about, when you want to put off tasks, there's different types of procrastination. There's the procrastination because we're protecting ourselves from failing. And then there's, I don't want to fucking do it now. I want to do nothing right now.

• 15:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  Fuck it, I'll do it tomorrow. But you know that doing it tomorrow is going to be way worse. Feel sorry for future you. Have empathy and compassion for future you and do something kind for them now, like if it was a friend. If it was a friend, right? And you were sharing a project together and you had the choice to, do you know what? I'm going to do fuck all today. I'm actually going to do fuck all and my pal, they can deal with it all tomorrow. Fuck them. You wouldn't do that. You'd feel bad. So have a think about future you. Do you want to be a prick to future you? So that's a roundabout way to say, if the United States has descended into a civil

• 16:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  war or Trump has dropped the nuclear bomb in Iran, there's no need to send me a DM saying, why are you not talking about the civil war in the United States? And the reason I have to say that, I didn't have to say that two years ago. Since the doom scroll, since the doom scroll of Instagram reels in particular has become the main way now that we consume media, we've become accustomed and entitled to instant commentary. So I can put this podcast out on a Wednesday, but if something happens on a Tuesday and I'm not talking about it, people get very pissed off. But anyway, this week's episode is a Science Week episode.

• 16:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  I do Science Week. I think I've done it every year of this podcast. As you listen to this right now, it'll be Science Week right now. Science Week is the 8th to the 15th of November in Ireland. I adore Science Week because it's just, it's massive. It takes place all over Ireland. There's tons of events for people of all ages, free events, and it democratizes science for everybody and gets expert scientists out into the community, just speaking to people. And what I love about Ireland in particular, in contrast with the, with England, we'll take England as an example. In England, in my experience, I'm open to being wrong.

• 17:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  In my experience in England, scientists tend to be incredibly posh. Now posh in England means very, very, very posh, generationally posh, a lot of family wealth going back generations, because education is a lot more expensive over there. And there's a class divide over in Britain, like a huge gulf between posh upper class, middle class and upper class, this massive divide that's, it's so wide that it can actually make communication difficult. The life of a privately educated, incredibly wealthy person who got to pursue science,

• 18:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  their worldview and life is so different to a working class person that it can interfere with communication. We don't have that issue in Ireland. The vast majority of experts and scientists that I speak to in Ireland are just regular people. It doesn't mean there's not financial barriers to education in Ireland, but not to the extent that there is in the UK. So because of that, I find Irish scientists are just very, very relatable as people. And that then, it makes science itself feel accessible for fucking everybody. So the theme of this year's Science Week is water. Now, water is hugely important in Ireland. It rains all the time.

• 19:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  We're an island, used to venerate holy wells or sacred wells, and we're living things that depend on water. But now water has become political, really political, as we, it's becoming more scarce. We have the data centers issue that are using our water. Back in 2015, we had the, the water protests where the people of Ireland protested the government's attempts at privatizing our water. And we said, no way. So for Science Week, I had a chat with Professor Fiona Regan. She's a professor of chemistry at Dublin City University, but she founded the, the

• 19:49Blindboy Boatclub?

  DCU Water Institute, which is, it's massive. It brings together researchers from like multidisciplinary, all the different areas to study like pollution of our rivers, our lakes, our ponds, protecting aquatic ecosystems, developing new technologies and trying to inform policy, actual government policy. So the Water Institute is, it's just this brilliant body. So myself and Fiona chat about everything from rivers to building ponds, to data centers, to the threat of flooding caused by climate change.

• 20:32Blindboy Boatclub?

  Before we get into the chat, let's do a little Ocarina pause.

• 20:42Speaker 04

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• 21:23Speaker 05

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• 21:53Speaker 06

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• 22:35Speaker 06

  Hey guys, it is Pablo Torre from Pablo Torre Finds Out, and as a journalist, I like to think I have the answers. But every holiday season, gifting makes me think otherwise. Getting it right feels impossible and can get quite stressful, but thankfully Sephora takes a lot of the pressure off. Whether you're shopping for a beauty expert, a skincare lover, or someone who is just hard to shop for, Sephora's got it all. The big assist comes from Sephora's expert beauty advisors, who remove the guesswork with personalized recommendations, so you can find something thoughtful and useful for the people on your list. Beauty is a gift anyone can give. So this holiday season, shop gifts at Sephora and give something beautiful.

• 23:16Speaker 06

  Host Thanksgiving with industry-leading quality standards from Whole Foods Market. There are no antibiotics in their meat department, ever, so carve up turkey and spiral cut ham with peace of mind. Shop organic sides like stuffing mix and cranberry sauce from 365 brand. And guess what? All their delectable pies are made with no high fructose corn syrup. Gourmet Thanksgiving flavors with the quality you want, only at Whole Foods Market.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Finally, TV on your terms. With Sling, you can stream the shows and sports you love on your schedule, all at a great price. Just pick a plan, add the channels you want, and skip the ones you don't. Want to pause your subscription? Well, Sling lets you do that. And you can keep watching over 600 free channels. I mean, the only thing better than flexible TV is free TV, right? Sling lets you do that. Base pack required. Visit sling.com to learn more.

• 24:20Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's my high-pitched ocarina I should rap. That's gonna disturb a couple of Jack Russells. There you go. Right, that was the ocarina pause. You'd have heard an advert for some bullshit. Support for this podcast comes from you, the listeners, via the Patreon page, patreon.com/theblindbypodcast. If you enjoy listening to this podcast, and you're showing up every week, and it's bringing you Mirth and merriment or distraction, please consider funding the podcast directly, because this is my full-time job, and it's how I earn a living. And listener funding is how I deliver a podcast each week. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month, but if you can't afford that,

• 25:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  don't worry about it. Listen for free. You listen for free because the person who's paying is paying for you to listen for free. And if you're paying, you're paying for someone who can't afford it to listen for free. Everybody gets the exact same podcast, whether you pay or not, and I get to earn a living. It's a wonderful model based on kindness and soundness. Patreon.com/theblindbypodcast. Upcoming gigs. The only gig left that there's tickets for in the year of 2026 is 11th of December, Waterford at Winterfell. That's the name of the festival. It's gonna be in a Spiegel tent. That'd be great crack. Then, 2027.

• 25:47Blindboy Boatclub?

  So in February, I'm gonna be in Vicker Street on the 18th of February. I don't know if those tickets are available yet, but they'll go very quickly for Christmas. So that's Vicker Street in Dublin on the 18th of February. Then, I'm in Cork at the Cork Opera House on the 25th of February. Those tickets go on sale today, and that's, I'm gonna call the Cork Opera House the real opera house. Before, my gig in fucking Sydney Opera House in April, which I released extra tickets for, because that, that did sell out, but I was able to release a couple of extra tickets. Australia and New Zealand in April.

• 26:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  Brisbane is sold out. Part is sold out. Melbourne is down to the last, I think, only 100 tickets. Auckland in New Zealand, very nearly sold out there in the Town Hall. And then, the Sydney Opera House, very few tickets left. But if you're thinking of Christmas gifts, tickets for my live podcasts are an ideal gift, you glorious cunts. And you'll get all those tickets at theblindbypodcast.ie, assuming my website is working. If you want to find out about Science Week and all the wonderful events that are happening this week, go to scienceweek.ie. Now, here is the chat with the magnificent Professor Fiona Regan from DCU.

• 27:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  I looked at what the Water Institute does, and it's phenomenally massive, to the point that it's hard to get my head around exactly what it is.

• 27:26Speaker 06

  Thanks for asking me that question. The Water Institute is an institute where we're bringing people together from all of the faculties in DCU to just be able to research any topic concerning water. So we have, obviously, engineering and life sciences, but also we have social sciences, citizen science, we have law, governance of water, we have marine activities. So really, it's an institute where people want to study all aspects of water.

• 27:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  I mean, here's the thing. Rivers, ponds, the rain, it's this strange thing. When you come to anything, to do with biodiversity, to separate them is really, really difficult because they're all so connected. Like, I had this, I was even thinking about rain recently. I did a podcast on it. And even the idea of rain being a thing, how that's nearly ridiculous, because rain is a cycle. Let's just take rivers. I could look at a river and think that a river is healthy, and go, that looks like a clean river to me. But how do we define, like, what is a healthy river?

• 28:38Speaker 06

  Wow, you've really opened up a fantastic conversation here. I love the way you mentioned that water is the cycle. I mean, that's the whole thing. Yeah. So let's talk about the river. I mean, the river in Ireland, think about the Shannon, you're from Limerick. I lived in Limerick for a good while. It's the lifeblood of the country, and you look at it and you think it looks clean, like you say. But there are ways of actually knowing that it's clean. If there are insects on it, if there are birds feeding on it, if there are fish jumping out of it. Not just if it looks clear, because you might have more muddy areas around peatlands, and you might have, you know, after a rainfall event, you might have silt and stuff.

• 29:22Speaker 06

  That doesn't mean it's dirty or it's polluted. But the real kind of sign of health is where you have insects and you have birds and you have, um, you know, dragonflies and you have, you know, the grass is growing along the edges and you have a beautiful, as you said, biodiversity. That means, that means it's, it's not polluted. That means it's clean and it's happy.

• 29:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  And one of the things too is what I'm consistently thinking about is shifting baseline syndrome, which is, so I'm, I'm very passionate about the Shannon River. Um, because I've visited every single day. I'm always watching it. I'm always looking at it and you know, from living in Limerick, we have a section of the Shannon River that we'd call the Abbey River. And just there on the river, there's old fishermen's cottages. And the lads who live in there, they're generationally descended from what used to be known as the Abbey Fisherman. They don't really exist anymore, but it used to be pre Ardenacrusha, a dam we'll say.

• 30:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  People who lived off the river, they would catch the mulch care salmon and this was their life. They lived seasonally with this river. And I spoke to one fella and he lives in this little cottage and there was two things he showed me that really knocked me back. The first one was, he's there on a riparian zone. So he's always, he always knew that floods were a thing and his little cottage has always flooded and that's been the crack. And inside in his cottage, he has built it in such a way that I know this is gonna flood. So he's careful with the furniture that he picks and whatever. But he's been there for about fifty years and he had a little stove, a metal stove.

• 31:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  And he put his hand to the side of it and he showed me, he says, I'm able to see how much the water level has been rising over the past fifty years because of the rust level on this stove. And he showed it to me and it was astounding to see. Uh, just in terms of the ci- citizen science, cause that to me was citizen science. But then the other thing he said to me, and this is the shifting, shifting baseline syndrome. When someone says a thing to me about biodiversity and I, it feels like they're exaggerating or lying, but they're not. He told me that when he was a kid, that at certain times of the year, he would look into that river. And it would glisten silver at him because of the amount of bellies of fish that were there. And I,

• 31:46Blindboy Boatclub?

  I heard it and I thought this fellow's spoofing, this fellow's exaggerating or lying for the crack. And that made me really sad because I don't think he was lying. I think he's telling the truth about that river was so alive with fish that it glistened. And I think he's spoofing because I was born in the eighties.

• 32:05Speaker 06

  Yeah, wow. Um, look, he's not spoofing at all. Uh, the reality is that the numbers of, of fish in the rivers have decreased incredibly. And that image that you have shared there, the glistening salmon, that goes back into poetry, that goes back into folklore.

• 32:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 32:24Speaker 06

  That's not just one person. I, I mean, there was something in the paper recently uh, in, in another section of the Shannon where it's reported a similar type of image that you described. That glistening full river of fish. And that is no longer the case. And the barriers are causing that issue. The pollution is causing the issue. Land use is causing that issue, pollution. Uh, but, but certainly what you have mentioned there about citizen scientists is so important. Those people who are river users, those people who have lived along the river, they have the information about what biodiversity was present. And you know what? But biodiversity can actually return, Blind Boy. This is not something that can't be, you know, uh,

• 33:09Speaker 06

  um, improved upon. This isn't like, you know, something that we cannot do something about. You know, I'm really positive person here.

• 33:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 33:17Speaker 06

  Uh, but you've described something that was, it can be again, but we actually need a huge mindset change. You talk about shifting baselines. We can get those baselines back. Uh, and, and people, citizens are the people that can do it. And those stories that you, you've shared there, there's loads of people all across the country. My father, who used to get the odd poached salmon down at the end of the lane, should I say, when I was very young. He would have said the same thing about the Drumcliff River in Sligo, where I, where I grew up. Uh, same thing, you know, uh, fish leaping out of the river. So I just, I love the way you've described that.

• 33:54Speaker 06

  But the importance of the people, and I think that's the same thing. If we want to see biodiversity returning, it's those stories that you are, are, are telling. Uh, it's so, so important.

• 34:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  What I'd like to discuss is, is like how the ways then that we as people, like something I, I only became aware about a year or two ago, but, um, I think it's called biodiversitymaps.ie. But basically it's, it's a public, it's, it's a brilliant bloody map. And you can type in the name of any animal in Ireland and it will show you where that animal was spotted and when. And a lot of the times that data is coming from just regular people deciding to upload a photograph and tell the website, you know?

• 34:37Speaker 06

  Absolutely.

• 34:39Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like here's one thing, right? So you know, the, the, the Park Canal is, that's a canal that dates to the eighteen forties in Limerick and it just comes off the Mulcher into the Shannon. And I've been looking at that over the past two years. Boats don't go down it anymore. It's no longer disturbed. In my opinion, it has stopped being a canal and has become a pond. Now I'm basing, and I love that. I love that. Cause I'm basing that on,

• 35:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  it's gone shallow to the point where I can see the sun is reaching the bottom.

• 35:17Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 35:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  And looking at the lilies, the frogs, the dragonflies, it's incredibly alive. And even though it's a canal, I'm going, that's behaving like a pond that is now. And I find that really interesting that that's changed. Cause I know that ponds are so important to the health of everything. Who do I go to, to say, I think that canal is a pond now and I think that should be looked at as a pond and protected or investigated?

• 35:47Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, uh, looks, um, amazing again, uh, example. Uh, you can go to the Environmental Protection Agency, you can go to your local, local catchment scientist. Um, you know, there's your local authority there. Um, anyway, if those people, um, will listen to you and I think what's really important, uh, that you've pointed out is the richness of a pond. And the fact that when you have more biodiversity, you talked about, you know, frogs and lily pads and all of that. Those are things that we could have linking, you know, biodiversity highways across the country where you have

• 36:27Speaker 06

  ponds in people's gardens, in parks, you know, all over the country where you're linking then for insects and birds to migrate, to, to move across the country. And you're creating this, you know, channel for these, um, these insects, these, these creatures to actually move around the country. And so ponds are so important. So what you've described is something clearly that, that sounds really healthy and so important there with that canal not being, being used. And, and you know, in one sense, it's a pity canals aren't being used more. They're so important.

• 36:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  Go away. Why, why are canals important?

• 37:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, I mean, people can use them for leisure, but they've also been used in, in the past for moving goods around countries. Uh, they've been moved, used for transport, you know, and what would be uh, uh, great in Ireland is to see waterways being used, used where people value water. Whatever way, Blind Boy, that we could get people to value water more. Let's get out there and do it. Let's get on the water.

• 37:26Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, cause that's why I asked that, cause I'm wondering, you know, uh, cause canals are, are man-made. So I'm wondering, why do, why do you care about canals? But you're thinking now, the very fact that you would get a person to reconnect with a body of water. That psychological, that caring about something is enough to get us to think about rivers and biodiversity and the cycle.

• 37:53Speaker 06

  Hundred percent, yeah. I mean,

• 37:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  Engagement.

• 37:57Speaker 06

  Yeah, hundred percent. I agree. Yeah.

• 37:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  Wow, okay. Um, cause like I said, the,

• 38:04Blindboy Boatclub?

  the main thing I'm trying to get at is to, to distill, to use a water word, to distill think that what you're doing is so large and so big that I want to try and figure out what's going on. I mean, what, another question I'd ask you. Like I know it's good to be focusing on the positives and that's brilliant because it motivates people. But also I don't think a lot of people are fully aware of the damage that's been done.

• 38:33Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 38:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  If you could pick one thing that has really broken your heart about the health of rivers in this country, what would you, what would stick out as a, as a culprit? Something that you wish never happened, or if you could reverse it, you would?

• 38:51Speaker 06

  Oh, wow. Um, I suppose the very first thing that Enters my head, it may not be the most important barriers within rivers.

• 38:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  Go ahead, what's that?

• 38:59Speaker 06

  So things that stop, let's say salmon getting to where they need to go.

• 39:04Speaker 06

  So we're as, you know, drainage is another one, the arterial drainage, which would have really affected how rivers flow in Ireland. I grew up on a small farm in Sligo and it was, I suppose, the time when farmers were encouraged to drain land. And at that point, you know, we were really impacting how the landscape of Ireland changed, right? And what that meant also is that we were affecting how rivers flow and, you know, the controlling a little bit, a lot, how water moved around the country and how soils behaved. So the biggest thing that affects me is that we're trying to control water.

• 39:47Speaker 06

  Whether it be barriers within rivers affecting how salmon come back to where they want to go. Or whether it be barriers that are affecting flow and affecting kind of aeration. We cannot control water. You just can't. Water will find a space. You talked about the fisherman and the flooding that comes into his home.

• 40:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, it's supposed to flood and Limerick is built in a riparian zone. So Limerick is supposed to bloody flood, but we built a city there.

• 40:18Speaker 06

  Exactly. And that is not the only city. There's lots of cities all over the world that are built too close to the coasts. They're built on floodplains. So we know that, right? But as long as we continue to try to stop with hard engineering, water making space or making room for water, we're in a losing battle.

• 40:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  Just a little, a real shifting baseline syndrome question for you there. So when you, when you, when I said to you, you know, what's a big one that sticks out to you? And you mentioned draining and you grew up on a farm.

• 40:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  I don't even know what you're talking about. Like, I grew up in a city. So when you say to me, like, what do you, what do you mean? Like, do you mean like farmers had a field that might have been a swamp and they decided, I want to put cows there. But that swamp was important. Like, and how do you, how do you even do that? How do you get a field that's a swamp? Where do you put the water? Where does it go? Like, how?

• 41:19Speaker 06

  Oh, this is a great question. Nobody ever asked me that question before and it's something that, you know, growing up with it and I studied environmental science. You kind of know it's wrong. You know, you know it's wrong when, so to answer your question, a drain essentially is you, you dig a kind of a large trench and fields that would typically flood or swamp or fill with water, let's say with heavy rainfall. And the water will go into those drains and then feed into streams or lakes or rivers. So you're finding a kind of an avenue for the water to come off the land so that it doesn't kind of flood. And the reason for that is, and I really understand this, right?

• 41:59Speaker 06

  The reason for that is that farmers would have had more value from the bit of land that they would have, okay? And that is good. But what I would be saying nowadays is there is value in letting that land flood. There's value in the pond that you described.

• 42:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yes.

• 42:15Speaker 06

  We can have ponds and fields. We can have, and there's some great examples of researchers who are working with farmers nowadays. And they're working with farmers to say, look, would you just give that corner of your field for two days during this heavy rainfall? Allow it to flood and you're protecting the people downstream or down, you know, further downhill from you, from flooding.

• 42:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  Oh my God, we're talking about nature's sponges.

• 42:42Speaker 06

  Hmm. Yeah. Well done. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, you don't seem like someone who doesn't know what's happening on a farm. This is wonderful. I mean.

• 42:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  The reason I'm thinking about nature's sponges is I promised myself I wouldn't talk about the Starling shit in Limerick, but I have to a little bit, okay?

• 43:03Speaker 06

  Go ahead.

• 43:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  Look, Jesus Christ, I can't stop myself talking about it, but it's, it's the area in Limerick City there by the river Shannon, I looked at the maps, okay? And it used to be riparian. It used to be an area that was a sponge. It used to be an area that was supposed to flood. And what I found so beautiful was that the starlings return. The starlings are taking nitrogen from all around Limerick in the food that they eat. And they are doing massive amounts of shits onto this area. But we've built the city there, so it's used to sludge that you slip on. But the fact that that used to be fertilizer for that area that was going to flood.

• 43:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  So that it would bring those nutrients upstream to wetlands. It just blew my mind and it got me thinking about humans. We tended to build cities on natural floodplains, plains, because they were great places to fish and have access to water. So all of our cities that are being threatened by climate change. And the only people I can see who are really doing something positive is the Chinese sponge cities. Have you seen those?

• 44:18Speaker 06

  Sure have. Yeah, absolutely.

• 44:20Blindboy Boatclub?

  Can you talk about that? Cause that, to me, I look at China and sometimes I see the stuff that they're doing and it's very progressive. This idea that they would build a city that has natural sponges because they know they've built a city on a sponge.

• 44:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, absolutely. And they are very progressive in this, this area kind of sustainability. So the sponge cities in China are great examples of how you need to think about engineering, let's say above land. So what they have is their streets above, let's say the ground that's going to be the sponge. So they, they, they're building stuff elevated. And it allows then, when you have torrential rainfall or whatever, you have these sponges, the land itself, the landscaping, able to absorb that water during a period of time when there's heavy rainfall. That process, I mean, they have, they've invested quite strongly in some cities there. That process is happening across Europe as well. There are cities like.

• 45:20Speaker 06

  Well, you have Lyon in France who are leading out in terms of nature-based solutions. So basically looking at if they were replacing footpaths, replacing it with grassland or replacing with, with kind of a filtration system where the water could slow down. It's all about slowing down water. You can't stop it. The Netherlands are doing this at scale. Other countries across Europe are really doing lots of this and we're doing it here. There's a great example from W C D council have done work in Santry. Again, working with citizens to understand what the needs are and to put in these kind of solutions that will cope with these really intense rainfall events that we're going to see, we are seeing.

• 46:04Speaker 06

  And we're going to see more of during climate change. So the sponge cities is one example. And it takes big vision, right?

• 46:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 46:13Speaker 06

  We can do this more locally. If, if there's kind of an agreement at government level, we can say, okay, any new investments, any new roads, any new replacements needs to include sponge type cities.

• 46:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  Solutions.

• 46:30Speaker 06

  Nature-based solutions.

• 46:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  If I can give a little shout out to Limerick actually, because Limerick City Council did something beautiful recently over the summer. So we have just there on, it'd be a road you're familiar with, outside Saint Mary's School.

• 46:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  There, there was a road there for ages and it's just outside where the little kids used to go to school. And whenever it would rain, you'd get this giant puddle, but then massive rush hour traffic. And you used to just see the little kids get splashed by puddles.

• 47:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  And what Limerick City Council did there over the summer is they put a bioswale there and a rain garden. So now the entrance to this little kids, these little kids' school, not only is it a little fun garden that they go through with loads of biodiversity and like, even within a month of it being there, the amount of insects and bees and butterflies that I saw was astounding. But most importantly, it's designed in such a way that when that road floods, which it does, and it has dirty stinking water from all the cars that go through.

• 47:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  Now that water very slowly goes into this bioswale and creates a gorgeous, like a little Japanese pond that you can walk over. But it slows the absorption of it and it doesn't overwhelm and flood. And it's tiny, a tiny intervention, but it's so beautiful because I look at it and go, wow, imagine this on a bigger scale. And it's clean in the water. The toxic metals that might be in the rainwater from all the cars. And possibly that that's being cleaned by whatever plants are in the little artificial wetland, you know?

• 48:16Speaker 06

  Hundred percent. Yeah, absolutely. You're spot on. Yeah. Yeah. Now that's a beautiful example actually.

• 48:24Speaker 06

  That's a simple intervention. Obviously, it takes investment. It's not for nothing. A beautiful example of how things can be done at local scale, at small scale, but then can be replicated, you know, because each local authority, each council will have funds. And they can now start to think, let's, let's improve biodiversity, let's do things differently. And that's a fabulous example. And like I say, in Dublin, they've done the same thing. And it is happening, you know, around the country. Yeah.

• 48:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  And what, what I love about that is that's tiny. It's just one little road. But it's like what you said earlier about, wouldn't it be great if we cared about canals again? Because it's, it's simply getting people to care. And that tiny little bioswale, that changes consciousness. It changes the way that people think. Even though it's a miniscule impact, it makes people, it shows people, isn't this lovely? Isn't this great? Because there's so much disinformation about nature-based solutions. There's fossil fuel lobbying money. When people, a lot of people on the street,

• 49:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  when they hear a green solution, they immediately revert to taxes go up. And so much of that I know is, is as a result of disinformation because that, that is the, that's the line of disinformation is this is too expensive to do. And that annoys me so much because what's actually expensive is the damage. That's what's expensive.

• 49:56Speaker 06

  It's the expense of doing nothing and doing the wrong thing. That creates huge additional expense. And I think maybe we haven't looked at those figures because I understand that, you know, for some parts of, of the country or some parts of governance, let's say, it needs to be in terms of, of euros. But for the rest of us, need, we need to see, you know, more insects, more birds, more fish, more green spaces.

• 50:24Speaker 06

  You know, we need to see that. But I understand that that value sometimes has to be put into monetary value for it to be bought into.

• 50:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 50:32Speaker 06

  You know, but there's lots of smart people that can do that. And I think, and one thing I'd love, I'd love, you know, a call to action, you know, people who have back gardens, to put ponds in their back gardens. Because can you imagine like in a city like Dublin or Limerick or Cork or whatever, you've got loads of houses with back gardens, pond in every back garden. And then you've got insects, you've got a kind of a highway for insects. And so then you catch birds and so on.

• 50:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  The thing is too with a pond, and I know, I know this from talking to Kali. Again, when people hear ponds, they go, ah geez, I don't have the space. A pond can be a flower pot full of water that you just don't, you don't touch.

• 51:07Speaker 06

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 51:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  You know, like anything, any small bit of stagnant water, just let it go wild and there's a little pond. And like I used, I, I was like this with wildflower. I had,

• 51:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  I was getting people to get, you know, proper indigenous native wildflower. Make sure it's the real deal because some of the garden centre stuff can be, they call it wildfire, but it's not indigenous. And I was getting people, as a little act of anger, I suppose, getting people to make seed bombs. So simple, a bit of clay, a bit of compost and you put it in. And I was getting people, walk around your city and throw some native wildflower into a derelict building that's pissing you off. You know what I mean? Into that Celtic Tiger shopping centre that never got built. Like one of the things that saddened me once is it's flattened now, but there was a Celtic Tiger shopping centre in Limerick.

• 52:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  And it shut down about 2007. Cranes inside, like just unbelievable. And it was two years ago, it was the night of the aurora borealis. Remember that? And looking up into the sky I was. And as I looked into the sky,

• 52:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  looking at the aurora borealis above me, a stark flew over my head, right? But when the stark flew over, I looked up and I said, is he wearing green fucking socks? Is that stark? I was like, that sock, that stark looked like it was wearing green shoes. And I went nuts over this. I'm like, there's no way the stark was wearing green shoes, but I definitely saw it. And I put my critical thinking hat on. And I said, where did that stark fly from? And he flew from this abandoned, the, the shopping centre that was never built.

• 52:58Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 52:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  And then I went on to Google Maps and I looked above. The foundations had become, over the course of 10 years, a stagnant pond, but not one of the good ones.

• 53:10Speaker 06

  Right.

• 53:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  Completely full of green cyanobacteria. And what I'd seen was the stark had gone into that pond and gotten that cyanobacteria all over its legs. And then I found out, that's really, really, really toxic. And that stark could die.

• 53:26Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 53:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I want to chat about that. I want to chat about, so what's jumping into my head is Loch Ness up north, the largest lake on this island. The first thing I want to ask you about is the health of that lake, the impact of the cyanobacteria, how bad it is. And then I want to ask you, the political divide, is it possible? We're dealing with an island here. The island doesn't give a shit about who owns what or what's north or what's south or the troubles. The island doesn't care that Antrim is technically in the, in the UK. How do we deal with something like that? And is that lake in your jurisdiction?

• 54:11Speaker 06

  Wow. Well, you're kind of leading in here to your starting point, which is about that connectivity of water. And water doesn't see any boundaries. I mean, this is, if you look at the Danube, the river Danube crosses over, I don't know how many countries in Europe. And, you know, there's no boundaries. You just have water flowing. Loch Ness, like you say, is on this island.

• 54:36Speaker 06

  And you have, I think, if you, if you talk to people who have used this lake, have, have been on this lake, who live around this lake, there is an increase, there's an incredible sense of sadness. It's actually, it's quite remarkable when you speak to them. And also the other point is that there's a sense of what can be done, what, what actually can be done, that there's very little can be done. Because, so the, but the cause, a cause of this is, is a legacy of pollution.

• 55:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  Can you give us, just for people who might not know Fiona, what, what, tell us the situation with, with this lake? Like why the lake is so important and what terrible thing has happened to it?

• 55:21Speaker 06

  Well, Loch Ness is the largest lake and it has, it is located in an area that was very highly intensive, it had intensive agriculture over many, many years. And lakes are very, you know, slow moving or stationary bodies. So there's not a lot of mixing in these, in these water bodies. So if you have surrounding land pumping chemicals into those water bodies, typically what happens is chemicals is they'll settle out. They kind of go to the bottom into the sediment. And over time that builds up. And where, for example, you know, at, let's say throughout the year, you might get

• 56:04Speaker 06

  algae growing. Algae are really important as a source of food for many organisms in lakes and coastal areas. And they, those algae will start to grow when the sunlight starts to come out, let's say March, April, when the temperatures start to increase. And so a natural process that happens in every water body is that you might have algae, these green naturally occurring species will just grow. But they, they need nutrients. They need sunlight. They need nutrients. They need heat. And if they get a lot more nutrients than they need, you get a huge increase in growth. And that is what happens in lakes like Loch Ness. And Loch Ness has been getting

• 56:49Speaker 06

  very significant algal growths over the last number of years. And the reason is the legacy of pollution that is within the sediment, within the, the lake itself, over decades of pollutants going into the lake from agricultural activities

• 57:10Speaker 06

  over, you know, over those periods. And so what happens then when you have a changing climate is you get increased temperatures and you get lakes behaving in different ways. Lakes are really wonderful water bodies to study actually. And there's real experts across Ireland that have studied lakes. And lakes can turn over at certain times. They can mix. And lakes mix with wind that's crossing over them. You know, even though they're kind of more stationary than rivers, obviously, they can mix. And, but, but what happens if you have a lot of algal growth? Those algae die off. As they die off, they float down, they fall down to the bottom. And the bacteria at the bottom then start to consume the, the algae.

• 57:55Speaker 06

  And in, in consuming the algae, they respire like us and they use, they use up the oxygen in the lake. And so the lake essentially becomes dead. So there's, there's a couple of things that are happening. So there's the algae which you mentioned, you know, which is proliferating. They're growing at a huge rate and, and becomes toxic. And that is what's really important. But also then the die off and the consumption of oxygen means you can't have, you know, fish. And of course, really important species of fish are being lost in that beautiful lake. And but one thing I just want to mention, because we're, we're so passionate about this here in, in DCU and the Water Institute. And one of my colleagues, Paul Leonard, has been working on this amazing technology.

• 58:37Speaker 06

  It's an antibody-based sensing approach that can measure the toxin in Loch Ness. The toxin that we're looking at in Loch Ness is microcystin. And it's really, it, it's not good for, for fish, for, for dogs in the area. And, and we know that, that it has been present. But we've been developing this technology and actually a company came to us and saying, look, could we try your, your technology? And they bought some of the kits this summer and they tested them. So where you see, I suppose, a real challenge, like Loch Ness, it provides opportunities for us to put our science, our research into application, which is what I love about the institute. Is that we can get people like Paul to work with, you know, companies

• 59:23Speaker 06

  to develop something that can be taken out of the lab. Because these assays that we're, I'm talking about, they're complicated.

• 59:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  And do, do, do you run into problems a lot Fiona, because of that lake is now not in the EU?

• 59:40Speaker 06

  No, uh, we don't in the sense that we collaborate. Yeah, we collaborate with um with companies and researchers. We collaborate with um universities in the north. Uh, obviously, we, you know, the academics always collaborate and

• 59:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  Of course.

• 59:55Speaker 06

  You know, we've always collaborated with northern universities. I mean, that it makes absolute sense and we have fantastic uh research collaborations with with these um universities. So that and that's a great thing, I suppose, that academics. Um, again, not necessarily thinking about boundaries. We want to work together to find solutions and to do interesting and excellent science. So uh to answer that question, no, um, obviously you need different permissions. You know, we can't just rock up and go out onto the lake.

• 1:00:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's it, yeah.

• 1:00:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, and that's that's fine. You just work together with people and you make things happen. You have to start working collaboratively um as you understand and as you alluded to, working with people to make things happen. And even though uh we have um two jurisdictions essentially where water um is concerned, we have to work together. You know, we've worked for many years um in um cross-border uh water projects. Um, because you've got catchments that don't know the bor- the the borders. And um, you know, water doesn't stop at a border, as you know.

• 1:01:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  And the other thing too is like, cause like, the other thing that's staggering about the Water Institute, right? Is the the multidisciplinary thing that you have going on. And like e- even thinking about, like, let's just say when you were talking about the drainage earlier, right? You've got physics, chemistry, engineering. There's so many of these disciplines. It's it's a thing I have with with every scientist that I speak to, especially ones who are working with with anything to do with habitat and biodiversity. I'm always asking them, when, at what point do you stop? If I'm talking to somebody about insects, it's like, when do you know when to stop?

• 1:01:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  Because how do you talk about it, this insect, without talking about the tree that it depends upon? But now you've, now you're a tree person, but you're, how do you stay in your lane? And this sense of when it comes to nature, there's no fucking lane.

• 1:01:57Speaker 06

  Hmm, I love that, yeah. That's so true, and that's why I love my job and I love the institute. Um, the fact that if you want to solve a problem in relation to water and associated biodiversity and environment, you have to work with other disciplines. You cannot, you're not an expert in everything. And so, and that's the great thing about the institute is that we have members of all of the five faculties. Um, like, one, can I give you one example? We have a beautiful project, a coalesse project, which is looking at design justice for sustainable solutions for water. And I'm working with an anthropologist and I thought, yes, wow.

• 1:02:40Speaker 06

  I mean, it's incredible because the thinking is completely different. And you, you know, people ask different questions in different ways so that we do the right thing. I mean, this person, Fiona Murphy, described to me about making a sustainable urban drainage system, which is, you know, it might have grassland or whatever. And you think about the pregnant woman, or you think about the woman with the buggy, or the person in the wheelchair who tries to get over that grassy area. Okay, you're trying to do the right thing in terms of biodiversity, but there's no design justice thinking in the process. And I thought, oh, my goodness, I never, I'd never considered that until we had this conversation, developing the project together.

• 1:03:21Speaker 06

  And now we're working with Val Brigand and we're working with um in in Dingle as well uh to look at what people are doing and looking at the do- design justice aspects of of that. So just, I suppose I went off point a small bit there, but the the discipline piece in terms of water and biodiversity uh means you have the opportunity to speak to people who really understand ways of finding solutions. And those solutions might be engineering-based, they might be biology-based, or they might be communication-based because you need to talk to citizens or agencies or government, and those, all of those disciplines are needed.

• 1:04:01Blindboy Boatclub?

  Even, you know, folklore, like, eve- I I'm just thinking back to the the Shannon River. Um, like, that story the fisherman told me about remembering his childhood of the river being silver is so important. Um, even something tiny recently, seal, well, I seen seal rescue up in Dunleary. Uh, they rescued a little seal pup who was in the the Shannon, very, very upriver. And I couldn't believe this. I'm like, I got onto them and I said, Christ, are you telling me seals go that far upriver? And they're like, yeah, that's actually normal. And I couldn't believe it because I know this river, river, and I'd never seen a seal or thought that a seal would be there.

• 1:04:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  And then I went looking at the maps and I saw this tiny, tiny little island in Limerick City, tiny. And someone mailed me and said, when they were a kid, that island, which is, Jesus, it'd be the size of a tennis court. When they were a kid, that island was called Inishan Rowan. It was the island of the seal.

• 1:05:07Speaker 06

  Ah, for goodness sake.

• 1:05:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  Do you know what I mean? And so it's like, my God, it that, there were so many seals on that tiny island in the middle of Limerick City that they called it that. And then the name disappeared and now shifting baseline, I can't even imagine a seal there. But that's folklore, that right there is folklore. So now that, that gives us very important information, I'm assuming, about there's actually supposed to be a bunch of seals there.

• 1:05:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, and absolutely. And I suppose it's important to understand though as well, you know, even with climate change, um, organisms will move, species will move um to find where where it suits them to live, you know.

• 1:05:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, we're seeing dolphins now for the first time. Like, I I never remember dolphins in the Shannon, like in Limerick City. Cork has it, we're seeing it the past couple of years, but I don't know, is it a good thing?

• 1:05:59Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. I mean, I I get unsettled when when people um say to me, oh, I saw such and such a thing. And I I actually said to my husband yesterday, I haven't seen the geese yet. And um I had to kind of stop myself because to me, the geese, when they arrive in Clantarf, is a sign of normality. And so we have, we have the ones, there's about 10 of them that I saw there about a month ago. And they come in reconnaissance and they check the place out and they say, yeah, okay, everything's in order. And they send a message back, I presume, uh and say, you know, come on, but the others haven't arrived yet. And I think, just like the seals and like, you know, other, like the dolphins and the other examples, these are unsettling things in one sense. As a scientist, you're kind of questioning all the time.

• 1:06:44Speaker 06

  Uh, but for, you know, for people, um, you know, obviously what we want is more diversity. And if you create opportunities, so whatever caused the seals to leave, maybe we need to study that and create the opportunity for them to come back or for something else to come back. Um, so it's around, we cannot solve everything, but what we can do is create spaces where we can have greater diversity and greater biodiversity.

• 1:07:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  On the individual level, look, that's wonderful. We can do ponds and things like that, but let's look at larger scale now. Like, even what's jumping out of my head when you were describing Loch Ness. And so when you're talking about the impact of fertilizer, what we're talking about really is is artificial fertilizer, a chemical fertilizer. What would it look like if fertilizer is something I'm thinking about a lot because of, with the strait of hormones there? We're realizing, oh, so much of our artificial fertilizer comes from natural gas that's in the Middle East. And that choke point can actually impact the food that's on our shelves, which to me is ridiculous.

• 1:07:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  Because I know we used to have, we had a national fertilizer company in Ireland up until the 2000s because it was considered such an important part of public safety. But, so you can't talk about a body of water like Loch Ness without now talking about agriculture isn't going to go away. What would a farmer do to still be able to grow their crops and to, I don't want to use the word fertilize, but to have a healthy crop-growing ecosystem without using artificial fertilizers? What would you like to see as as a lake person, as a river person?

• 1:08:30Speaker 06

  The most important thing, I think, is understanding that Soil is critical. Um, soil is the basis of our food production and soil health is really important. And we like to see really green grass for our beef production. And we like to see really well ploughed fields for our, our food production. Of course, we, we don't produce a lot of food here for, for our own consumption.

• 1:08:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:00Speaker 06

  And we, we ship a lot of that out. So, starting to answer your question, starting with soil, we need to have better understanding for. So intensification of agriculture means you're compacting your soils. You're not getting the best out of your soils. If you look at reducing the intensive level of agriculture that we have. Agriculture is so needed for so many different reasons um in Ireland. And what we probably really need to get our heads around is that cutting back on the, on the intensification of agriculture and really valuing the soil. So rotating crops and making sure that we have really well aerated soils. Fertilizing to the level that we need.

• 1:09:44Speaker 06

  So in other words, where fertilizer becomes a problem is when the soil cannot absorb it. It's either over fertilized or it's so compacted that the fertilizer runs off. That's where the problem lies. It's not that soil doesn't need fertilizer. It can either have it through the plants that are grown and rotated, or it can have it applied. It can be applied through, you know, natural fertilizer from slurreries or the synthetic fertilizers that you described.

• 1:10:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  Are those, I've been learning a lot about legumes, you know, there's crops that take nitrogen from the air and fix it into the soil.

• 1:10:19Speaker 06

  Totally, yeah. So beans are really important. And if you see in other countries around Europe, around the world, they rotate their crops. So they rotate crops so that you can't keep their soil aerated. So you've got lovely environment for worms and all of those things that kind of aerate the soil. And also you put the nutrients back into the soil naturally. And also, can I just say that where you have, let's say, intensive agriculture. If you break it up with certain plant types, you can actually reduce the amount of pesticides that you need as well. Some, you know, so not just fertilizers, but actually reducing other chemicals. So how we approach the use of our land, land use is so, so critical.

• 1:11:02Speaker 06

  Can really improve, reduce the amount of chemicals that we put on land. And so as a result of all of that, improve water quality.

• 1:11:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  So let's just say, like, so the farmers, right, who are, no farmer is destroying lakes be out of, we'll say ignorance or out of acting the bollocks. I would imagine they're doing it because of pressures of capitalism. And I know that we used to have the common agricultural policy in the EU, which was a post-World War II thing that, that it protected farmers all over the EU. And then, I think ninety-three was the year. It was the World Trade Organization changed the rule that really

• 1:11:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  financialized food, food policy, financialized food policy and took away the protective net. And that's then when you start to see your giant supermarkets bulk buying all over the EU. So I miss, if, if, if you were to go to a farmer and say, why are you doing this? The farmer would probably say, this is the only way that I can survive because that's how the market has gone.

• 1:12:20Speaker 06

  Totally, absolutely, yeah.

• 1:12:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  But I, like, I love what you said earlier about saying to a farmer, how about leaving that field there and let it turn into a swamp? Policy wise, and in terms of your, the Water Institute and maybe going to government.

• 1:12:37Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:12:37Blindboy Boatclub?

  How, how do you get a situation where a farmer can have sustainable farming? Or a farmer can have a field that's a swamp and then for them not to lose their arse? Like, what does that look like?

• 1:12:52Speaker 06

  Yeah, this is, this is a conversation I, we are having with government. And um it's, it's one that, you know, we've had an event fairly recently in the Royal Irish Academy where we had experts from the Netherlands and from the European Academies talking about how we can look at nature restoration and bringing farmers along. Look, what I really

• 1:13:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  Still be able to earn a living.

• 1:13:16Speaker 06

  Hundred percent. But at the moment, we are paying them subsidies to intensify, right? And that is based on policy, food wise, food harvest, based on policy. Why not pay them subsidies to do the right thing?

• 1:13:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  Now you're talking.

• 1:13:30Speaker 06

  We can still have farming, but at a, at a level where we're not destroying the environment. And farmers don't want to destroy the environment. It's poor policy that's driving this. And I really believe that farmers, you know, they want to use every single inch of land because that's what they're getting subsidized for. That's, that's the way it works. But why not say, hang on, let's change how you work with your land. Let's, let's change how the money is divided. And I'm not talking about providing bird boxes, right?

• 1:14:01Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:02Speaker 06

  I'm talking about giving over a piece of land when there's heavy rainfall coming. But you can have that land back in two weeks' time or a week's time.

• 1:14:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  And it's about the, the fella up country or the farmer up country going, do this because it's gonna flood in Limerick if you don't.

• 1:14:17Speaker 06

  Exactly.

• 1:14:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  Wow.

• 1:14:19Speaker 06

  Wouldn't it be great, wouldn't it be great if you look at the River Shannon from the top to the bottom, right? And you got everybody to agree, all the farmers along the way, and this is a vision, like, this is probably mad. Get them all to agree that we're gonna work together because we want to make sure the impact of what's happening up in Cavan isn't gonna impact negatively down below. And we're gonna work together in terms of protecting the environment and creating a more diverse environment. And we're gonna do that, but we're gonna look at how, how we obtain our subsidies. We're gonna do that by, by managing our land in a different way. And that needs to come through government. I mean, farmers, we can't blame farmers for this. That needs to come through government, you know?

• 1:15:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I think too, what's important is, like, I'm interested in this stuff because I'm curious about this stuff, all right? But if I speak to a lot of people I know, they're gonna go, oh, sorry buddy, I don't have time to give a fuck about a river. Or I don't care about a fish that's after dying because I, I'm struggling to pay my bills, right? And what I've started doing is trying to reframe these conversations in terms of how much it actually costs us individually. Like, I think it was the Journal that he did the figures there last year. But if you look at the impact that data centers in Ireland, because the, the UN, the UN called out Ireland in particular as a country that data centers are having a massive impact on us specifically.

• 1:15:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's quite disproportionate compared to other countries and the UN called that out. It's estimated that data centers cost each individual in Ireland an extra three hundred quid on their electricity bill.

• 1:15:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I think that's a really useful figure. In terms of getting my neighbor to start caring now. How do you feel about data centers? And because one thing I heard which was shocking is data centers use a lot of water. They use the water to cool, cool uh themselves down. They need water when you and I need water, which is the hot months of the summer. And then the other thing, which really pissed me off, data centers use potable water. They use the water that you and I can use. That must infuriate you.

• 1:16:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, it does actually. Um, but, you know, you, you mentioned potable water. It annoys me anyway that we use potable water for absolutely everything in Ireland. So you get this beautifully treated water at huge cost to the taxpayer. And, and we use it for watering our lawns, for washing our cars, for putting down toilets, all of that, right? So that's a whole other.

• 1:16:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  But give me an alternative. What would you like to see?

• 1:17:00Speaker 06

  So there's great ways to, to separate now water systems. So you can have what's called grey water systems. So, you know, less of a, of a good quality water. And maybe you've, maybe you've harvested from your roof, so you can use that for, for your, your lawns, your gardens. And, and also you can separate them within your house or within your apartment block or whatever and use the drinking water for drinking, but use the, the grey water for other things. And, and so obviously the cost in terms of monetary costs would be much less. Energy costs would be much less. And, and so the taxpayer would win in relation to that. And I've been banging on about this for a long time, that we should not be using really high level,

• 1:17:44Speaker 06

  high quality drinking water for absolutely every use um in, in Ireland. And then, you know, the issue around the summer drought, which we had this summer. You know, you, you need to encourage all new builds, every business to have water butts and to have water recovery systems. So that we have security.

• 1:18:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  How do you mean there? What, what would a new build with a water recovery system? What, what does that mean?

• 1:18:11Speaker 06

  I remember visiting a company down in Tullow, I think it was. Uh, God, it must be ten years ago. And they had a water rainfall collection system on their roof. And so then they would use that for non-essential uses, like in, in toilets and, and so on. And washing the, the yard or whatever it was. And but they, they saved a huge amount in terms of the amount of water, of drinking water.

• 1:18:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  I mean, that's really annoying that, like, the fact that you're like, so I'd never even thought about that. But what you're, from what I can gather, you're pointing out that in Ireland, it fucking rains loads and we, that could be our solar and we're not.

• 1:18:52Speaker 06

  Hmm, exactly.

• 1:18:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  That is really annoying. You have a giant tank, the tank collects rainwater. And now all of a sudden you're flushing your toilet with rainwater. And, and now you're saving this potable water that costs a lot of money to process.

• 1:19:06Speaker 06

  What I was trying to get, um, you know, the planning authority to think about was that any new build. From now, from today, must have rainwater collection systems, rainwater harvesting systems.

• 1:19:19Blindboy Boatclub?

  The conversation that I'm having with you is nearly identical to the conversation that I'd have with someone who's an expert on housing, in that it's this problem that's massive, solutions are there, and then it's like, policy, policy, policy. And we bang our heads against the wall. If you could look at a country that's doing something brilliant right now, where you can go, wow, they're doing it, and it's excellent, just look at them, what would you point out?

• 1:19:49Speaker 06

  I don't think I'd point to one particular country, but certainly in the Netherlands, they think about water every single day. But they are doing things and they're talking about water. Water is part of the discussion. You know, it doesn't become overly politicised. You can talk about water up there.

• 1:20:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's really interesting, because, so first off, they have so many canals. Barges are part of the culture.

• 1:20:12Speaker 06

  Exactly.

• 1:20:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  They have those gigantic dams. Like, it's just so interesting that, taking it back to that thing you said earlier, get people caring about canals, you can't detach the fact that you're pointing out the Netherlands as a community of people who are having progressive water conversations, and then looking at what our infrastructure has built into their culture and folklore and being.

• 1:20:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's in their mind all the time.

• 1:20:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:41Speaker 06

  And, you know, it's not just scientists, it's across the public. Because I was at a meeting in Amsterdam last year and this year, and there were members of the public there, and yeah, it's in their minds. As it should be in every country, because we're in a climate crisis, and it's a water crisis. I don't think people realise that you cannot live without water. And we had a sense of drought this summer, and we're in, you know, a country that rains the north flat, so we've got beautiful rivers that have water in them. So we're not relying on seawater, let's say, for example, as a source, like some of the arid countries. But you cannot live without clean water. And

• 1:21:25Speaker 06

  the climate crisis is putting it up to us in relation to that. And I think we need to value every drop of water. You know, everybody should think about water that is going down their sink, going into their toilets, you know, what we use. Like, even at the start of the ban this summer, I saw neighbours sprinkling their lawns, and they were asking people to kind of, to report their neighbours. And I said, I'm not doing that. I mean, this is...

• 1:21:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  I don't like that. I called that out at the time, though, Fiona. But that is what I would call neoliberal messaging. That's the thing that happens whereby, this is a structural problem. And what neoliberal messaging does is that they'll take a big, big structural problem and go, do you know what? It's actually on you, the individual. Rat your neighbour out.

• 1:22:20Speaker 06

  Exactly. And you are so right. This is a huge policy issue. This is a governance issue. And we need to manage water better. I know we're going a long way in terms of trying to do that, but part of that is changing how we use it.

• 1:22:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  All right. So Professor Fiona Regan, thank you so much for your time there, because we went over a little bit. I absolutely loved that chat. That was so much crack.

• 1:22:44Speaker 06

  Thank you. It's a real pleasure. And so delighted that you brought so much of limerick into the conversation, and so much of the Shannon. It certainly has a huge part in my heart. So thanks a million.

• 1:22:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  That was a wonderful chat with Professor Fiona Regan of the DCU Water Institute for Science Week 2026. Check out scienceweek.ie, because that's happening right now. I'll be back next week with your regularly scheduled programming. And hopefully, the United States of America hasn't descended into civil war, or Donald Trump hasn't lobbed a nuclear bomb at Iran. Hopefully, I'll have replaced my lost keys. And I'll be in the type of calm, emotionally regulated headspace that I need to be in to deliver a hot take. In the meantime, rub a dog, wink at a worm, genuflect to a swan.

• 1:23:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  Dog bless.

• 1:23:51Speaker 05

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