I have always been very conscious of the damage we are doing to Mother Earth, banging on about Climate Change long before it was fashionable to do so. Picture me as a teenager, back in the 1990s, with my checked shirt, torn jeans and doc martins, insisting we would all be underwater and tormented by pandemics released by melting glaciers by the year 2020.

I wasn’t completely wrong!

But the reality was, that despite everything I said growing up, I still ended up greeting visitors that had flown here on big airplanes and spending days driving around in a diesel vehicle, printing out lovely glossy brochures and offering complimentary Spring Water in plastic bottles to all my guests.

Then came Covid. All of a sudden the planes were grounded, the customers were gone and I was left reflecting on what my business had become and what a hypocrite I had become. My teenage self would hate me! And so the change began.

First of all I changed direction. Foreign travel is a massive contributor to the climate crisis and while me no longer offering tours was hardly going to make any difference to the millions of people who visit Ireland every year! I would no longer be part of the problem. I shifted my focus to people living in my own country and especially the surrounding counties.

So Gobhnait, my lovely little van was put up for sale. I then began building up my walks, highlighting all that is magical, wonderful and utterly precious in the natural world. I developed workshops that focused on helping people reconnect with that magic. Making their own soaps, syrups, salves and lots more. All things our ancestors made and used and all zero waste and completely sustainable.

Last summer, while in between lockdowns I trialled the walking tours and some of the workshops and to my delight, people loved them!

My office went paperless, out went the glossy brochures instead little postcards made with recycled paper and no gloss so straight into the compost bin they could go!

Instead of springwater, my guests received a glass bottle filled with a delicious sparkling nettle drink made by a sustainable brand, only a few miles from my home.

Tree planting and biodiversity repair came next. And thanks to the wonderful Jesh from Seal Rescue Ireland and organic seeds provided by Irish Seed Savers we have planted an assortment of wild herbs, plants and trees in Courtown woods and its surrounds.

Then I became involved in the Protect Courtown Woods campaign. And though Wexford County Council eventually did sell this utterly wonderful and ancient woodlands. I remain actively fighting to ensure its safety into the future.

I discovered too, that there is an interest in living a more pagan lifestyle. Something that I have always kept private for fear of being dismissed as a bit of a nutter! But it seems lots of people wanted to know about honouring Earth Goddesses, Tree Rituals, and celebrating the ancient Celtic agricultural festivals. And so out of the Broom Closet I came!

Two years later, gallivanting.ie is unrecognisable to what it was before. I am currently awaiting my grading from Green Tourism and am always looking for new ways to reduce my carbon footprint but also how I can help my own clients and visitors to North Wexford reduce theirs.

To my delight, along my journey I have met others doing exactly the same thing. The forrester who now is an organic gardener, the clothing boutique owner who now repairs and upcycled old clothing. The techie who sold his company to live in a tinyhouse and plant a forest!

And while it is true that the huge vast amount of carbon going into our atmosphere comes from a handful of large corporations

See here for plastic (thanks Nestle!)or here for carbon emissions (wow, just wow)

It is still important that the rest of us try to make every possible change we can in our own personal and work lives to ensure the human race survives. The planet will survive, she may look pretty gnarly for a while but she will recover. We won’t though.

So the next time we meet, maybe you’ll share your green story with me!

Lorraine