Mayo Dark Skies: A wonder of the world, right here on our doorstep
Members of Friends of Mayo Dark Skies Community Group - Heritage Finalists at the National Lottery Awards last month. Left to right -Georgia MacMillan, Mags Flaherty, Ged Dowling, Carol Loftus and Ruth Fitzsimons (Dark Source Lighting Design), Breege Grealis, Fiona Hopkins, and Kerem Asfuroglu (Dark Source Lighting Design).
In the latest of a series of articles where I interview leaders about how we build a better West, this week’s piece explores the importance of big ideas that make the west central to the future.
How do you recognise a big idea, judge its importance and appreciate that its time has come? How do such ideas get translated from concept into positive actions, structures and even institutions? How does our region develop and support such new initiatives, and make them mainstream?
To discuss these questions, I went to the north bank of Clew Bay, to talk with Georgia MacMillan about the Dark Sky Project. Georgia MacMillan is a leader by action, a person who inspires by example and commitment.
The ‘Dark Sky’ movement is about protecting our night skies from light pollution, the wasteful and damaging use of excessive artificial light at night. Artificial light at night is often overused, with too much of it, beaming too strongly, many times needlessly, often times wastefully. The negative effects are real; whether it is the number of insects in our environment; the impact on human sleep patterns; rising energy bills and excess use of carbon; or our capacity to see the Milky Way.
With a deep commitment to sustainability and conservation, Georgia MacMillan came across the idea of Dark Skies while studying Outdoor Education in 2013, a journey that led her to be an employment-based doctoral scholar on Dark Skies, funded by the Irish Research Council and the National Parks and Wildlife Service. As she puts it, conservationists “do a lot of conservation in terms of what goes on in the daytime: we really don’t think about what happens after dark”. What happens is, of course, a lot of artificial light, and much of it is wasteful and damaging.
Not that long ago, people walked in the dark all the time: our eyes were attuned to it. Georgia MacMillan emphasised in our discussions that the way we light things currently does not aid us as many think it does. It actually disarms our natural capacity for night vision, as well as meaning there is less to see when we do look up.
I asked her why Mayo – and particularly her area of the county – is leading the movement to change that. She explained that topography and geography provide the explanation: if you look inside the dark square using Castlebar, Mulranny, Bangor and Crossmolina as your four corners, you get the idea. The dark night sky from there is one of the most beautiful things in the world. People will flock to see it, for it inspires dreams. To view the cosmos from inside that square, with no light pollution interrupting, is a profound and extraordinary thing. It is a wonder of the world, right here on our doorstep.
Now, with that bit of poetry said, let’s be frank. Culturally, in this region, lack of light has meant failure. There has been no greater lament than "that will be the last time there will be light in that house". We have associated the lack of light with death, emigration, economic under-achievement, with backwardness, and being cut off from the centre of the action. It is no coincidence that rural electrification and free secondary education are spoken of in the same breath – a fight back against our peripheral status. People, therefore, can think that ideas like this are somehow a revolt against the modern world, a sort of return to nature of the type they recoil against, something based on a desire to plunge us back into some kind of darkness.
But Georgia reminds me that Dark Sky principles – wherever applied – are not about turning lights off. It is about using light properly, applying scientific and conservation and sustainable principles to its use. It is about stewarding our resources in the way that the people of this region have done since the beginning of time. And at the same time, these same sustainable and conservation principles are shaping the future of the world in multiple other ways – they are central to every debate, and not in the least peripheral.
She is also keen to emphasise that the overuse of artificial light has created real and immediate problems to be solved, right here in the West. As only one example, she asks: “Why are we losing pollinators? Everyone knows that a moth is attracted to light, as well as every insect. If you start doing the maths on the impact on nighttime pollinators, it is massive.”
Nothing moves faster than an idea whose time has come. In 2015, the Friends of Mayo Dark Skies group was established to form a community movement in this area. By 2016, the now Wild Nephin National Park was designated as a gold tier ‘Dark Sky Park’, an accreditation which means it is free from light pollution and an international attraction.
Growing out of this movement, a dynamic Newport Astronomy Club and the Dark Sky Festival was born, led by local festival director, Fiona Hopkins. This annual festival uniting the communities of Newport, Mulranny and Ballycroy, was held again a couple of weeks ago. It is a huge success, so much so that Fáilte Ireland is now heavily promoting it as one of their flagship events.
The next step is for the whole of County Mayo to become an International Dark Sky Reserve, because, Georgia tells me, even from the dark spots in the county “you notice the light encroaching, with light domes over the urban areas".
"This is pollution – we are wasting far too much energy to light the sky when we intend to light the streets.”
That does not mean you switch off lights or don’t prioritise public safety and comfort, she emphasises. It is that you start to tackle the excess use of light in urban areas and bring in policies for responsible outdoor lighting.
“If successful, a county Dark Sky Reserve would be the largest and a world first... We are working with Mayo County Council on a policy to tackle light pollution which is a very welcome step to reduce emissions and improve the natural night-time environment.”
These initiatives have been producing rave reviews, but sometimes we find that people from outside the county can praise a new initiative while there can be scepticism locally. Georgia addresses this with a laugh, saying that “blow-ins can sometimes see things from a different perspective” while pointing out the reality that it is the energy and commitment from local people that are driving the project. As well as the work on developing a county-wide light pollution policy in Mayo, there are further exciting developments: plans for a planetarium and observatory at Wild Nephin National Park and for a Dark Sky Centre for research.
Westport was also recently selected to host ALAN 2025, a multidisciplinary international conference on artificial light at night and its impact on biodiversity, culture science and human wellbeing from October 28-30, 2025. It will bring leading thinkers and academics from all over the world to discuss these questions, in Mayo, right here in our backyard. They will then stay around for the Dark Sky Festival which will follow it.
The Dark Sky project is positioning Mayo at the centre of debates of global significance, and as Georgia explains, that’s because it brings together multiple strands. It derives from the natural environment, relates to changes in science and culture, and is broad enough that each area can do something distinctive. It also retains a freshness which means it is constantly re-inventing itself rather than it just being the same thing over and over.
The strength of the theme allows for all sorts of things to happen: environmentally, in terms of leading thinkers coming to Mayo to discuss these questions; economically; in terms of the boom to tourism and in attracting the type of people who we need for our industries to bloom, exactly in the same way Pat O’Donnell outlined earlier in this series; and distinctiveness, in making Mayo a place where the cutting edge is being discussed, a place which is central to major ideas, not disconnected from them.
Georgia explains how that works with a very specific example.
“Mayo Dark Sky Park was presenting at the EU’s light pollution conference hosted by the Czech Ministry for the Environment in Brno last year, the only Irish group to do so.”
To drive big ideas like this, you need leadership like Georgia evidences, but also enthusiasm and commitment from a wide range of people. Georgia is quick to emphasise the importance of the local community group in driving the Festival; of institutional partners like the NPWS; of the national body Dark Sky Ireland; as well as the team of ambassadors and volunteers who support the Dark Sky mission more broadly. But the point is clear: such energy comes about because the idea itself is so strong.
That team is needed to train and talk to wider sets of people based on their needs and interests. For example, the tourism business needs a certain type of training to meet the needs of visitors attracted by the Dark Sky Park, whereas others will need more in-depth knowledge transfer to become ambassadors for the wider goals of the initiative.
Managing time pressures on people is crucial, and hard, as Georgia explains.
"The more successful the project becomes, the more demands there are; and now you’ve got to service that.”
That creates a dynamic which leads to a thin spread, especially when meeting commitments to funders. The model they have employed, she explains, is to have a core team, augmented by people coming in and out over time, and with specific volunteers focused on particular events and activities and sub-themes. It is a lot to manage!
Writing grant applications, while providing very welcome forms of funding, takes a huge amount of time and energy. Every community organisation knows this. Having templates is essential, but, Georgia explains, that each application needs something innovative and fresh, which is a challenge but also means you have to keep thinking anew about – and evaluating – what you are doing.
“The gap is the administration,” she tells me.
Employing someone to do this is expensive and cumbersome for voluntary groups, and if there were some way to access secretarial and administrative support it would be extremely welcome. It would help such organisations to keep their eyes on the outcome of what they were established to do, rather than on the process of how they do it.
The Dark Sky Park is a National Parks and Wildlife Service initiative project, which gives this aspect structure and support. But how do you scale up a wider community-based initiative, while keeping its community focus? Ultimately, to grow out you need to scale up, and that is going to require a different model of organisation. Does doing that mean you lose some of your verve? Possibly, but that is often a risk worth taking, for, to be successful this big idea has to influence policy on a big scale; development policy, planning policy, lighting regulations, biodiversity policies. As Georgia says: “There is no point having an initiative like this if it isn’t in the County Development Plan.”
Being able to read the night sky is a beautiful thing as well as a scientific skill – both art and science. As Georgia puts it: “It is like a road map."
Too many of us have forgotten how to do it – but are keen to remember.
Reflecting on how much of humanity’s greatest thinking – whether about big or more individual things – is done while looking up at the night sky, she remarks: “Wouldn’t it be a shame if that thought process for the future is cut off by light pollution?”
When it comes to climate change, biodiversity loss, we need to inspire young people to think about how they are going to meet those challenges. Young people everywhere who will be ecologists, scientists, and engineers can be inspired by this, and because it is inter-disciplinary, it brings in all sorts of people and ideas, while placing Mayo at the centre of those disciplines.
Dark Skies throws the idea of core and periphery on its head. As MacMillan says, this is “a chance for rural to lead urban". The Dark Skies movement is based around biodiversity, sustainability and energy conservation practices – these are the very ideas shaping the world. By embracing them, Dark Skies is placing this region at the centre.
What does this example teach us about other potential Big Ideas that might be centred in the West?
A few things seem clear. A Big Idea must be central to the future, not about the past. The theme has to be sustainable and of its time. To imagine one you need to think outside the box, or in this case, to be prepared to look up. If you looked at this part of Mayo in a conventional way, you might think there is only bog and heather, so that tells us how important it is for us to grow and imagine new things and not become set in existing ways.
We need to support and encourage the people who are leading such efforts in whatever way we can and perhaps employ a method which private enterprise uses, of finding early-stage good ideas and then backing them through various forms of investment.
Once you have the idea and it is a good one, Georgia says, don’t be afraid to ask for support and advice. Finding yourself a champion is a big help – she has a particular word of praise for the support they received from Duncan Stewart as a patron. At the same time, developing local champions is crucial, as volunteers need to feel the pride of recognising and promoting what is on their doorsteps. Maximising the number of people in our region who feel the pull of the Big Idea, and ensuring they can be part of it, is essential to success.
Working collectively we can make a positive impact in all kinds of ways. Through Dark Skies, that includes reducing wasted energy, protecting biodiversity and promoting human health and wellbeing. Embracing this approach, Georgia argues, saves resources of all kinds, protects and enhances the natural world and helps us sleep and live better. It is making Mayo a point of interest for people from all over the world. It’s a big idea whose time has come, and, amending a phrase we often say, the star signs are on it.
