Guided Hikes and Birdwatching
bird watching
guided hikes
walk for the dogs
“Living where I am now on the Loop Head Peninsula you can’t help but be inspired by nature as it’s right there in front of you every morning when you wake up.”
Dermot Cosgrove
Dermot Cosgrove Explorer
Dermot Cosgrove is a long distance solo hiker and wildlife enthusiast. A native of Ennis now living on the West coast of Clare (Kilkee), Dermot has always had a passion for the outdoors and nature. During his youth he was most often found in woodland or close to the waterways of his home town.
At the age of 19 Dermot decided to enlist in the French Foreign Legion.
After finishing basic training he was based in France and completed operational deployments in Africa and the First Gulf War. After three and a half years he transferred to Djibouti in East Africa where he trained as a medic and deployed operationally to Somalia twice.
Now working as a security consultant he has worked throughout Africa, the Middle East and South Asia mainly in conflict zones such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Sudan with diverse clients including the media.
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In Conversation
With
Dermot Cosgrove
With
Dermot Cosgrove
Here are some excerpts from a 2017 interview Phonetic Planet
My interest in trekking Greenland started after I began corresponding with a member of the Greenland White-fronted Goose Study based in Wales who has trekked the Arctic Circle Trail on a few occasions.He gave me a detailed overview of what it was like and so I started planning.
“I decided that while I was doing the trek while it was something of interest to me and I want to try and photograph the wildlife there that I could combine that by raising funds for a good cause. IDftD receives no government support so they rely totally on donations, they don’t spend a lot on advertising as they prefer to spend as much as they can on training.”
“The average cost of training an assistance dog is about 15,000 Euro so it’s a massive investment and there’s a three year waiting list. As a dog lover I know how important my two crazy mutts are to me so I can’t begin to imagine how important one of these dogs are to their owners as they’re a life changer and anything I can do to help give someone a chance at having a better quality of life I’m happy to do.”
charity work
Irish Dogs For The Disabled
“I first learned the extent of the fantastic work about Irish Dogs for the Disabled via my sister – who fosters dogs during the socialisation phase of their training – but it was really after I decided to raise funds for them that I learned the real extent of fantastic work they do. They don’t receive any supplementary funding from the Irish government so they rely on fundraising and donations. Each dog, from the time it’s born to the time it’s assigned to a person, costs about €15,000 – it’s a massive investment. Roughly 9 out of 10 recipients of a dog are children, and they receive their assistance dog completely free of charge. So when you hear a 6 or 7-year-old say that they can’t wait to get a dog because then they can get rid of their wheelchair and walk, things hit a whole new level of importance.” .