Encounters is a new series for RTÉ Radio which tells stories about our relationship to the natural world around us. 
In each episode I travel around Ireland visiting the parks, gardens, shores and hills where we spend our time and find out what brings us to these places.
In the first episode I visit an old burial ground at Aughadown, by the Ilen river outside Skibbereen in West Cork. It is a place I visit regularly and the chats with strangers on the roadside or by the river there have inspired this series. While recording the episode there I start a conversation with a local fisherman, John Ball, who tells me about fishing in the river with his grandfather.
I visit the Antrim Coast at Whitehead to meet Hilary McCollum who usually walks her dog there. She tells me about her lifelong association with the coast and how it offered her shelter during an often traumatic childhood. She tells me how the beautiful stretch of coast is threatened now by the oil and gas industries. Hilary took this photo of a sign urging walkers to Stop Look and Listen out for trains before crossing the railtrack which runs along the coast. In a way, she says, it's her mantra for her own daily walks!
Back in West Cork I join Khanyo Dlamini in her community garden at the direct provision center in Clonakilty. Khanyo lives there with her two children and the garden is a place where residents can come together to have meals and let their children play. Khanyo introduces me to a fennel plant and explains how the plant reminds her of her home in South Africa. 
This programme was first broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 Extra on July 11th, 2021. It was presented and produced by me, Regan Hutchins with support from RTÉ and the BAI Sound and Vision Scheme. 
Sound supervision was by Tinpot Studios, Dublin

Encounters - Stories About Our Natural World. Episode 1

Encounters is a new series for RTÉ Radio which tells stories about our relationship to the natural world around us. 
In each episode I travel around Ireland visiting the parks, gardens, shores and hills where we spend our time and find out what brings us to these places.
In the second episode the stories I hear deal with ideas of home – finding a new home, returning to an old one or simply studying the world from your own doorstep.
I begin in Drumcondra in Dublin with Tapasya Narang. She's from Delhi in India and I'm meeting her on the grounds of the All Hallows College where Tapasya is studying for a PhD. She has suggested we meet there because, not only is it a place where she spends most of her time, it is also a place which allows her the room to think and be calm. We meet in May when the new Delta variant of the Coronavirus is causing unimaginable misery at home in Delhi and Tapasya explains how the serene grounds of the college campus offer her sanctuary but she also regrets that she can't share this place with her loved ones at home. 
The quiet roads around Baltimore in west Cork are where you might spot some beautiful varietiesof butterfly and where you might also spot one woman, Orla Murphy, walking and observing the road in front of her. She records her butterfly sightings for the National Biodiversity Centre and has invited me to join her on her route – a journey she makes at least once a week. We visit a field which was once a paradise for butterflies and the flowers and grasses they rely on but which was recently sprayed and burnt with chemicals. Orla's dedication to the world immediately surrounding her is a valuable reminder to us all to consider the impact our lives have on our neighbours – even the tiniest ones.
Senan Gardiner is sharing his lunch with a robin when I meet him in his community garden in Thomastown in Kilkenny. He's just returned home to Ireland and to his native Tipperary-Kilkenny borderlands after 8 years in Germany. His relationship with a German man ended and he was struggling to finish a PhD. Senan is an ecologist and is also an educator. The natural world is his passion and returning home he threw himself back into his community. But the move to Ireland wasn't entirely pain free. Returning home isn't always easy. The pressure to be seen to be 'doing well' can be overwhelming. But the community Senan left feels very different now to the community he's come home to. A lot of attitudes have changed – for the better – he says.
This programme was first broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 Extra on July 18th, 2021. It was presented and produced by me, Regan Hutchins with support from RTÉ and the BAI Sound and Vision Scheme. 
Sound supervision was by Tinpot Studios, Dublin

Encounters - Stories About Our Natural World. Episode 2

Encounters is a new series for RTÉ Radio which tells stories about our relationship to the natural world around us. 
In each episode I travel around Ireland visiting the parks, gardens, shores and hills where we spend our time and find out what brings us to these places. 

In this final episode we hear stories about birth and death, pain and hope and regeneration. We flit between the present, the past and the future.
On her farm in Skibbereen, my aunt Patricia O'Donovan is watching a group of men planting trees on 18 hectares of land. They are planting 50,000 trees, in fact! Patricia is turning her farm into woodland. She has been managing it in the 7 years since her husband Gerard died and as we walk the land she tells me that she turned to him for strength and guidance in making her decision. 
Mary Twomey and I go birdwatching in a meadow on a hill outside Malahide. She has recently retired and she tells me that she used to dream of days such as these when she was working. We're being serenaded by a male reed bunting and there are larks bursting in song overhead. Mary has been living with a condition called endometriosis since her early 20s and has been managing pain following much surgery as a result of it. She tells me how days spent watching birds and listeing to them is therapeutic and how, during long painful periods in hospital, she would close her eyes and transport herself to meadows in her mind.
Mary also reflects on her childhood and her love of birds, flowers and nature books which she grew up with. Ólan Courtney is my first cousin once removed and is 8 years old. He walks me thru a part of his local forest outside Skibbereen. He has a very sharp eye for flowers and butterflies and also he warns us about the dangers posed to all animals by discarded plastic bags and cigarettes.
Our final encounter is with the graphic designer Annie Atkins who lives in Dublin but who was brought at the edge of forest in North Wales. Annie is a friend of mine. Her Galway born mother Mary Heneghan died in the early Spring of 2020, just as the world was dealing with the threat of Covid 19. Annie tells the story of her mother's death and how Mary's presence was felt in the birds and flowers surrounding Annie during those days. 
This programme was first broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 Extra on July 25th, 2021. It was presented and produced by me, Regan Hutchins with support from RTÉ and the BAI Sound and Vision Scheme. 
Sound supervision was by Tinpot Studios, Dublin

Encounters - Stories About Our Natural World. Episode 3

Actor Olwen Fouéré reads Kuno Meyer's translation of an old Irish poem called ‘A Song of Winter’. It's a description of the hardship of winter and the savage effects it has on birds and animals. Cold, hunger and the loss of sanctuary are often the lot of both humans and animals – something we might forget in our centrally heated age. We also hear the reflections on these themes from people with their own particular thoughts and memories about winter. Contributions come from the ranger in Phoenix Park, Terry Moore, writer Dermot Bolger, actor Eleanor Methven and Eileen Hutchins who is a retired carer and also my mother. We broadcast this poem as part of a Winter themed episode of The Book Show on RTÉ Radio 1 on Christmas Eve 2017

A Song Of Winter

Three meditations on our waking and sleeping hours. 

Over three programmes, I record friends, family and loved ones, writers, poets and other gentle souls who guide me around their mornings, noons and nights.
This series is a miscellany of short features, poetry, prose and music which I produced early in 2020 for RTÉ Lyric FM. 

I wanted to provide a space for some reflection and calm away from the noise of the world. 

Morning, Noon and Night was broadcast on RTÉ Lyric FM in February 2020 and was funded by The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland Sound and Vision Scheme.

Morning - Episode 1 Morning, Noon And Night. RTE Lyric FM

Writer Sara Baume and myself hit Cape Clear Island in West Cork to find rare vagrant birds but find some meaning to life instead.

Featuring Steve Wing, Mary Cadogan, Dermot Hughes.
Readings from Sara's book Handiwork (Tramp Press) come from Writers on One (RTÉ Radio 1)
Sound Engineer: Brendan Rehill
Producer: Regan Hutchins
Producer for lyric FM: Eoin O'Kelly
Originally broadcast on RTÉ lyric FM, Sunday October 25th.

The Vagrant Birds of Cape Clear - The Lyric Feature

Radio producer-presenter based in Dublin. Documentary maker. I make programmes for RTÉ Lyric FM, RTÉ Radio 1, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, BBC World Service, RTÉ Radio 1 Extra, Newstalk.

safarikent

Popular tracks