With deep regrets, as the publisher of irish environment online magazine, I announce the permanent suspension of the publication of the magazine, a one-person operation.  The first issue was published in September 2009 and I managed 189 issues without a break, even during the Covid pandemic.  Unfortunately  this 83-year-old publisher has begun to run out of cognitive resources, especially memory, so it’s time to quit.

My interest in publishing an online magazine grew out of teaching college English (primarily prose writing) for 15 years in Philadelphia; going to law school and then practicing as a private trial lawyer for 8 years, with a growing emphasis on environmental issues in the 1980s which were then just beginning to blossom; then joining the New York State Attorney General’s Office as an Assistant Attorney General in the Environmental Protection Bureau in New York City, where I was hired to help bring to trial the infamous Love Canal case involving disposal of thousands of tons of toxic chemicals into a canal in Niagara Falls New York, as well as many similar toxic waste matters for over 20 years in the AG Office.

In the Love Canal and other cases I was fortunate to work with regulatory authorities and active citizen organizations in understanding what happened in these environmental disasters and how they impacted individuals and communities.  That led to my book, This Borrowed Earth: Lessons From the Fifteen Worst Environmental Disasters Around the World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010; China Machine Press, 2011).

By the time I reached my mid-60s, I was eligible for retirement from the NYS AG Office, with a modest pension, and with full benefits from Social Security, themselves modest.  So I decided to retire and start a magazine on environmental issues, centered on Ireland, and including Northern Ireland, the UK, and EU, as well as US.

The focus on Ireland derived from an interest in the Civil Rights movement in the United States, which provided fuel for what was happening in civil rights protests in Northern Ireland.

My family is Irish and while we did not actively participate in Irish organizations or events, I was intrigued by what was happening in Northern Ireland (NI) and I closely followed political affairs there from the mid-1960s.  After a couple of years of listening to different voices about NI, I set up groups first in Philadelphia and then New York City for people committed to meeting with others from NI, including those from the Unionist side of politics.  In the early days there were few in the Irish-American communities interested in what NI Unioinists had to say.  As a result we were able to arrange meetings with the leading figures from both sides of the political divide, as well as with government officials.

For some unrecognized reason, I also had always been interested in European affairs, and studied them while at Notre Dame.

So in 2009 I launched the online magazine irish environment to cover environmental issues in Ireland, Northern Ireland, the UK, EU and US.  I felt that it might be helpful for those active in Ireland (and throughout Europe) to hear and see what others elsewhere with similar concerns and resources were doing.

Based on the above I always felt that the section of the magazine that provided edited video interviews with those working on environmental issues in Ireland, the UK and EU would be a most helpful source of exposure to what was happening.

Over the past 5 years I have been working on a video project, in the form of a documentary or video podcast, on “Witnessing Minamata,” which is the story of the mercury poisoning in Minamata , Japan in the 1950s.  I’ve found that I cannot do the magazine and finish the Minamata project.   So while I have dropped the magazine I hope to continue with my interests in environmental matters, including especially the Minamata project.

Stay tuned.