A Batty Summer in Clare

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Cormac MacConnell - The West's Awake

A Batty Summer in Clare

June 18, 2008

The West's Awake by Cormac MacConnell

WHAT is it about Co. Clare and bats? I know we are entering the silly season in this business, but a story popped up in front of me onscreen this morning in our Clare that amazed me in the light of an e-mail which had arrived minutes earlier from our own Clare County Council.

The story from your side, from the state of Michigan, was wryly stating that there was a bat box erected there recently for the protection of the local bat population and that it cost $120,000. And sadly, said the yarn, the Michigan bats were refusing to take up residency. No way were they going to move in and start a family.

And, dammit, the email from my local council stated that since we are more batty in Clare than about anywhere else in Ireland, with no less than 10 tribes of the dark little lads flying through our nights, we are now going to erect no less than 20 new bat boxes.

There are a good few already scattered through the county. Now the number is going to be doubled.

I checked the cost to see if this construction boom for little batty bungalows was going to cost us an arm and a leg like our counterparts in Michigan. No, the cost is reasonable.

Our council got a grant of the equivalent of about $5,000 from the Irish Heritage Council, and it seems that will fund the project. That’s fine.

On the other hand, there is an interesting track record here in this area. I contacted the council about it and am delighted to pass on news which will soothe their pain in Michigan.

You see, we got a new road by-pass through my own area of Newmarket-on-Fergus in recent years. It cost millions and is working a treat. You will use it if you are ever driving from Shannon Airport towards Galway.

And as part of the habitat protection measures adopted by our council, the off-road measures included the provision of a customized bat bungalow! I kid you not.

And the Clare County Council confirmed to me a while ago that three years after its completion not a single bat has borne his velvety bride in through any of the customized windows to establish a nursery. No residents at all.

And our bat bungalow in your money cost about $300,000! Now do ye feel better in Michigan?

There’s more. There had been an old abandoned school near the bat bungalow where bats had been breeding. To the best of my knowledge the council left this structure untouched during the project.

And what’s the situation? Every bat in the townland is still roosting in the ruin.

There are at least 10 families of bats under what’s left of the roof, baby bats arriving in droves and, when they learn to fly, stooping and swooping around the bat bungalow, but never dropping in.

The council man from the roads department hopes that they will do so eventually. It can, he says, take time, even a couple more years.

I thought to myself, listening to him, this must be the only sector of the housing demand where the council is ahead of the demand!

Another thing I discovered this morning on the batty frequency is that our local bats, contrary to common belief, have better eyesight than I have at this stage of my life! I always thought they were as blind as, well, you know who.

Not at all. Their sight is rated as “very good,” and they only use that echo system thing because they are hunting insects after dark.

We have several of the aristocratic and accordingly rare species in Clare, families like the Daubentons and the Lessiers, and these bear surnames like those of the landlords of the past who lived in the big houses and evicted us like rats whenever they took a notion.

Maybe such aristos will never stoop so low as to take up residence in a mere bat bungalow. It’s a thought.

The council’s experts in the area of biodiversity and bats is the splendid Brigid Barry, and she assured my man that, no, our bats will never get entangled in your hair either here or in Michigan, and that has to be good news as well!

One thing I could not extract from any Council source was the actual location of the bat bungalow. They are holding that info close to their chests.

The stated reason is to protect the privacy of the inhabitants. (But sure there are no inhabitants!) Another might well be that the building is such a fine one that two-legged human squatters might take a fancy to it and move in tomorrow!

Not all of us are as choosy as the Daubentons. We’re more like the Lesser Horseshoes if you ask me.

Concluding this batty piece, I’m smiling at the reality of some of the jobs which have to be undertaken by our public servants and agents. It clearly is somebody’s job to call occasionally to the bat bungalow and ask, like the poetic traveler, “Is there anybody there . . . knocking on the moonlit door!”

And then to report back in triplicate to head office that the tenancy has not yet been taken up.

Enough to drive you . . .!

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