Around the British Isles in 80 Island Books: Book 47 Monty Halls' Great Irish Escape

Monty Halls' Great Irish Escape: Adventures on the Wild Atlantic Coast by Monty Halls - first published in 2011

Monty Halls and his black very lively German shepherd dog Reuben spent 6 months from May to October in a cottage on the island of Inishnee (linked by a bridge to the mainland) near Roundstone, Connemara, County Galway. He worked as a volunteer for the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group and he spent much of the time in his own RIB sailing up and down the nearby coast observing and photographing dolphins. He also found time to:

Help tag basking sharks off Malin Head and blue sharks off Cleggan

Take part in a currach race at a regatta on the Aran Islands

Help with an autopsy on a very smelly dead minke whale

Transport a dead striped dolphin to Galway in his Land Rover

Take part in a mussel cooking competition

Learn how to harvest mussels

Learn how to fish for trout and salmon with varying degrees of success

Help crew a Galway hooker in a sailing race at Kinvara

Visit Inishturk and gave a talk to the school children about whales, dolphins and sharks.

In order to raise £5,000 to purchase a rescue pontoon for returning stranded cetaceans to the sea he organised a diving and wildlife festival at Roundstone, rowed 20+ miles from Kilronan on Inishmore to Roundstone and organised a sponsored rowing relay on a rowing machine at Roundstone.

I don't know how he managed to cram all those activities into 6 months. Presumably he didn't have very much 'stand and stare time'. The very readable account of his time in Ireland is interspersed with some information about cetaceans and other wildlife and some Irish history. It accompanies the BBC TV series of the same name.

Islands covered - Inishnee, Inishlacken, Inishturk, Achill Island and Inishmore 8/10