Aislínn Kelly

PhD Researcher. Environmental Communication. 

Field Notes


Observations at the crossroads of nature, environment, transport and art, published every Sunday morning. 

Field Notes by Aislínn •

Tractor Runs

There is something revealing in the images that have defined the ongoing fuel protests. Not the traffic jams or the rocketing prices at pumps or even the political soundbites that followed, but the tractors.Big, blistering tractors.Farming, as it turns out, sits at the sharpest edge of our collective failure to take climate resilience seriously.That reality has been building for years, shaped by policy choices that stretch back across the long arc of Irish political history, from colonisation to...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Whitaker State of Mind

One of the quickest ways to drive me up the wall is pessimism for the sake of it.Transport is often where it shows up most clearly. The second you mention improving rail, someone will tell you nothing will ever change, Ireland is uniquely incapable of improvement, and we are somehow doomed to be permanently behind everyone else.It is such a dead-end way of thinking. It’s also just not true.I noticed it a lot while canvassing during the last general election. People in Limerick were not angry, wh...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Hollow Smoke

The past few weeks have been busy. My PhD fieldwork has been fantastic. I feel like I have finally begun to break ground. The writing that has resulted since returning from the trips has been fluid and abundant. A few other projects are beginning to take flight and come into fruition, which feels almost dizzying after months of planning.In the sun, I come into my own. The winter felt long, and now positivity and progress has split open in the March light. I am trying to make hay while the insp...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Dog-Eared Saint

There’s something deeply moving about Sinéad O’Connor.I realised this recently while watching an adaptation of Wuthering Heights where she plays Emily Brontë. She seemed to embody an ethereal combination of defiance and genius.Her voice has been the soundtrack to millions of lives, yet she never seemed particularly interested in playing the role of “celebrity.” She was more like a force of nature, inconvenient, brilliant and absolutely not kowtowing to any institutions.I’ve been listening to her...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

A Different Lens

The first thing you notice about the Great Light in Belfast is the scale. It rises in front of you like a piece of glass architecture inside a curved structure along the Maritime Mile near Titanic Belfast. At first glance it almost looks decorative, like several enormous crystal structures stacked on top of each other. It has the slightly surreal quality of something that belongs in a Bond villain’s lair. Then you remember what you are actually looking at. This enormous optic once sat inside the...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

The Sea Sees Me

The reaction is usually instant when I describe my research: You’re from Tipperary, and you study the sea?I still struggle with a neat answer. My path to island research wasn’t obvious, shaped less by geography and more by chance. Maybe in part by those childhood summer days spent threading through the waves at Bunmahon, though I’m not sure that counts.Think of this post as me dissecting that thought. What does the sea mean to me? As a researcher only beginning to scratch the surface of studyin...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Early Onset Romanticism

I think all this talk of Shakespeare lately has me thinking about how detrimentally idealistic I am. It feels like a diagnosable condition. Early onset, chronic, no known cure.The first Shakespeare play that captured me was The Tempest. Our school put on a production. Like all of my primary school plays it was a complete calamity, with precocious classmates leading, directed by the petty dictatorship of a teacher who seemed to detest the arts, joy and possibly children.I had one line. Maybe half...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Across the Board

Food governance is rarely front page news, but recently there has been serious beef making headlines. The controversy around Bord Bia’s chairman Larry Murrin after reports that Dawn Meats used imported Brazilian beef in some processed products, has stirred up significant debate.The government opposed a motion seeking his removal as chair. Farmers protested outside Bord Bia headquarters. Suddenly the inner workings of the Irish food system became dinner table conversation.Bord Bia sells a clear...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

The School’s Collection

This week I’m writing about a remarkable resource I only stumbled across recently. I’ve been completely transfixed by it. Naturally, it has nothing whatsoever to do with my PhD, but I wanted to tell you about it anyway in the hope you might get a kick out of it too.If the endless blogs about land policy have smothered this sentiment, let me make it clear. I’m a fan of the mystic.I recently watched an interview with Terry Wogan where he said that when it came to God, he believed in keeping “all t...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Ribbons at St Berahert’s Well

I have a habit of assigning auras to places. Some streets feel hostile, some ruins feel tragic and some fields feel telepathic. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the places that move me most, not chosen for comfort or beauty, but for something closer to honour.Unsurprisingly, one of my favourites is not a cathedral or a curated heritage site with a gift shop flogging leprechauns and laminated wayfinders. It is a marshy field in Tipperary, with no signpost and many ribbons blowing from the trees....
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Between Holds

I’ve been acutely aware of how preachy this Substack has become lately, all land and policy. Consider this a break. Me stepping down from the pulpit, if you will.When I’m not ranting about land use I’m usually doing something vaguely PhD-related. The last few weeks have been spent buried in journal articles and archives, reading about ecology and how nature creeps into buildings, how heritage management can reckon with an accelerating climate crisis and shift towards something more adaptive rath...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Nuclear Notebook

I was back in Tipperary the other day, and my older brother had just returned from a tillage conference. He came home with one of those goody bags they give out to farmers attending and, naturally, I went rifling through it. (If you’re reading this, Michael, I’m sorry.) I found amongst the goods a small, dinky notebook. Only afterwards did I realise it was sponsored by a company selling herbicides. At the back of the notebook was a graph that genuinely frightened me.Cow parsley, brambles and doc...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Of Mercosur and Men

The Mercosur deal has been ratified by the European Council of Ministers, despite Ireland voting against the agreement in line with calls from groups ranging from the Irish Farmers’ Association to the Green Party. The central objection is familiar: Irish beef farmers fear being undercut by cheaper Brazilian imports.It is a legitimate concern. But it is also one that sits uneasily with how Irish agriculture already operates.Undercutting is not a new threat introduced by Mercosur; it is embedded i...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

The Squirrel Question

Let me begin with something that genuinely grinds my gears. There are few things that test the limit of my patience more than telling someone how much I adore squirrels, only to be met with the tired rebuff: “Aren’t they just rats with bushy tails?”As if that revelation is supposed to undo years of admiration and I am suddenly going to look at a squirrel mid-tree-scaling and think any less of the animal.Often, someone will then chime in with a lecture on the grey squirrel, how bold, invasive, an...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Cold Snap

The first week of 2026 has arrived with a proper snap of frost baring its teeth. The field is iron-hard underfoot, blades of corn locked stiff in the cold, puddles sealed shut under sheets of ice. The sun hangs low, throwing long shadows and making colours electric. Powdery clouds drag themselves across the sky while birds retreat overhead.I love the cold, mostly because you can armour yourself in scarves and jumpers and carry on. There is also nothing quite as satisfying as being absolutely fro...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Tangled Up In Blue

I say this not fishing for sympathy, I’m so grateful 2025 is nearly over. It was the hardest year of my life. I lost someone closest to me in January, and the rest of the year felt like a conveyor belt of deadlines and sadness.The moment I knew things were dire was when my Spotify Wrapped arrived. If that many tracks from Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks are in your top songs, something is up.I wondered if this was appropriate for my environment-themed Substack, a sort of “what to do when it fee...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Threading Lightly

A few years ago, I bought myself a Barbour jacket. This was a dream that first began when I was a young and impressionable little girl. Somewhere between Richard Hammond (my first celebrity crush), Adam on Countryfile, and Kate Middleton on my mam’s Hello magazines, the idea morphed into the belief that this was the jacket to end all jackets. It wasn’t cheap, but I absolutely love it. It looks worse for wear now, slightly white around the pockets, the wax holding on for dear life. For the purpos...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

The Apple's Core

Are you the type of person who reads food labels, reviewing the small details such as country of origin, ingredients, what feels like the whole backstory?Maybe you have an allergy and need to be careful. Maybe you keep an eye on food miles, quietly judging strawberries that have travelled further than you have this year.For me, one thing I’ve always been particular about is eggs. I love hens; their curiosity and their oddly distinct personalities, so I always buy free-range. I like the idea of t...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Spilt Milk Politics

Ireland has the solutions; what it lacks is a government prepared to back them.The recent decision to extend the nitrates derogation, essentially a pollution exemption for intensive dairy farming, lays bare the failing state of this government and its ongoing refusal to invest meaningfully in the country’s long-term resilience.The Lowry coalition hasn’t delivered for the people of Ireland. It has delivered for the vested interests whose short-term gain demands a long-term cost paid by everyone e...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Tiny Canons

One of life’s great joys is walking through a grass field. The softness beneath your feet and vibing with the fresh air, it’s a practice that’s been proven to reduce stress, anxiety and calm your nervous system. Maybe it’s some deep-rooted cave-person instinct, but few things feel more grounding than wandering through a field. I’ve never dared go fully barefoot, mostly because my feet are permanent ice-blocks, a perfect model of homeostasis for something that’s about to keel. Still, I’ve always...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Finding Ground

Recently, someone asked me what I would say about returning to study something in the environmental field. I produced a flurry of half-thoughts and promptly forgot every coherent idea I’ve ever had. So here is the version I should have given: a semi-scholarly, semi-chaotic account of my own return to study. I offer it in the hope that it might offer a little clarity and reassurance to anyone considering taking a similar leap.Over the past few months, I’ve been settling into my PhD, I’ve found my...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Raising Railways

Last weekend I visited my lovely friend Tess in Bournemouth and was reminded just how much I love to travel. I absolutely adore the weightless feeling of it, having everything in a backpack and being engulfed by the new sights, smells and adventures that new cities promise. I had a blast. Tess brought me to the seaside like I was a Victorian Londoner recovering from consumption, like we were Jo and Beth in Little Women. We visited the Russell Coates museum (would recommend) and also consumed man...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

The Blackbird's Poet

Everyone carries their own superstitions, from not walking under ladders to blessing themselves when they pass a graveyard. Mine is that the blackbird is sacred. When I see one hopping through the grass, I take it as a sign of good luck. When I see one dead, I brace myself for misfortune. The blackbird, or lon dubh as Gaeilge, is one of the most widespread garden birds, easily identified as the males have black plumage and yellow bills, while the females are a less distinctive speckled brown, li...
Field Notes by Aislínn •

Paying for Life

One of the most pressing challenges of our time is how we respond to the mounting crisis of biodiversity loss.Biodiversity is the living fabric of our planet including animals, plants, fungi and microorganisms that weave together to sustain balance and life itself. It is the foundation of everything we depend on like food, clean water and shelter.However, this fabric is fraying. Almost a third of EU-protected habitats are now in unfavourable condition.In Ireland, over half of our native plant sp...
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