To the waters and the wild

As they potter and poke about the Irish countryside nature lovers often raise suspicion. When the naturalist Robert Lloyd Praeger was leading a group on an outing in the mid-20th century, two local men were overheard asking questions.

“What do you think they’re looking for?”

“Och, they’re from the asylum,” was the reply, and pointing at Praeger, he added “that one there’s the keeper!”

The rich field club history of peering at the ground, examining plants, rocks, beetles or snails has been a little-celebrated part of a long-established outdoor tradition throughout Ireland. The Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club, formed 150 years ago, is the oldest in Ireland and held its first public meeting on March 6th, 1863. The Dublin Naturalists’ Field Club was formed in 1886 while the Cork and Limerick clubs were set up in 1892.

A fascinating exhibition, “Citizen Science”, reflecting the Belfast club’s history and personalities during each of its 15 decades has opened at the Ulster Museum. Made up of enthusiastic and energetic amateurs, as well as scientists, the club attracted its share of eccentrics. A founder member, Canon John Grainger from Broughshane in Co Antrim, was a Church of Ireland rector who collected in the areas of zoology, geology, and archaeology. His house was filled with everything from a large dolmen to weapons from New Zealand.

The club provided a stimulating environment for people who had little schooling although a 19th-century critic dismissed them as “stamp collectors”. The coming of the railways meant that excursions could be organised to many parts of the country with locations ranging from coastal cliffs and chalk quarries to rivers, lakes and mountains. In 1910 on a trip to Carrickfergus Castle to explore the building’s 700-year history, the highlight for some turned out to be the snails observed climbing the castle’s ancient walls.

The photographer and club stalwart, RJ Welch, travelled 80,000 miles all over Ireland by train and jaunting car with his camera and cumbersome gear. He captured people fishing, farming, grinding corn, footing turf and digging for sand eels. He liked photographing set piece events such as horse fairs in Dundalk or the Lammas Fair at Ballycastle.

A mollusc specialist, Welch was club secretary and president, and was appointed an honorary member in 1921. He has the distinction of having a spider Erigone welchii – which he discovered – named after him. Occasionally, if he thought the public was not taking enough interest in natural history, he wrote to the local press under a pseudonym with an innocent nature inquiry; a few days later he would reply to himself, helping to arouse curiosity in the subject.

People of all ages made up the membership. The 1950s were regarded as the club’s golden era, with more than 700 members taking part in talks or trips as well as a newly formed folklore and dialect section.

Celebrated names from this period include the geographer and author Estyn Evans as well as the travel writer Richard Hayward both of whom were presidents. For many years Hayward led popular Easter excursions all over Ireland. He was also involved in collecting thousands of dialect words now held in an archive at the
Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.

The club is still in good health. It is forging links with its Dublin counterparts and launching an Irish federation to encourage closer co-operation. This will echo the days of the Irish Field Club Union, a committee of four clubs – Belfast, Dublin, Cork and Limerick – formed in 1894 to exchange information, and wound up in 1910.

The heyday of the field club may have gone but the annual conversazione is still held each autumn while fungus forays are as much a part of the events calendar as ever. Six summer outings, chosen from the quarter centuries of the club’s history, are being recreated this year to give members a chance to consider what has changed.

As it celebrates its sesquicentennial, the membership is around 150. Although the dynamic is different, the members remain as enthusiastic as the early amateurs of the 1860s. Their motto, Fiat Lux , translates from the Latin "Let there be light" or more
literally "Let light be made", and is as relevant today as ever.

The 21st-century methods of recording their findings are more sophisticated than those of the early pioneers and their behaviour perhaps less strange. But the “bent-over botanists”, as some like to call them, will continue to give rise to an insatiable curiosity as they contemplate the beauties of nature.

“Citizen Science: 150 Years of the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club” runs at the Ulster Museum until June 2nd. See bnfc.org.uk