Coastwatch has paid tribute to the late Irish Times journalist, author and activist Frank McDonald by hosting an annual event in his memory.
The first “Frank’s Day”, which was held online on Thursday, is dedicated to “carrying on his spirit from local to international”.
McDonald, who worked with The Irish Press, The Irish Times, founded The Living City group in Dublin and was a prolific author, died on September 5th after a short illness.
Some 37 years ago, he worked with Dubsky to set up annual Coastwatch surveys on the health of the Irish coastline.
“The Irish Times published our first shore survey as a pull-out questionnaire in the paper on Sept 17th 1987,” Dubsky said.
“We could accommodate just under 100 responses, but we got nearly 500. And it was a small team, which would jump from one spot to another with the forms and we were adding them up by hand,”she recalled.
McDonald had a “forensic approach” to analysing data, she noted.
“I remember Frank saying “do you realise we have deadlines in The Irish Times”,”Dubsky added.
“A spinoff company in TCD helped analyse our first data. But Frank didn’t trust the computer, neither did I, so we cross checked and it was published in two large reports in the newspaper…”she said.
Former Irish Times environment editor Kevin O’Sullivan recalled how he first met McDonald in University College, Dublin (UCD).
“I was involved in science debating society Spectrum at the height of the Woodquay controversy when Dublin City Council wanted to build a new civic amenity,”he said.
“Frank led the charge” in relation to protection of the archaeological site with Viking links.
“There were over 400 people at the debate and he spoke without notes,”O’Sullivan said.
“He reflected a new generation of people speaking out about the environment, and that sort of attitude applied in journalism which became much more campaigning and investigative in its role, and Frank epitomised that,”he said.
O’Sullivan recalled the “incredible” investigative series which McDonald and Mark Brennock researched and wrote for The Irish Times, and how McDonald also had “a feel for good design which could be controversial with architects”.
“This applied not only to housing but also to space and how we accommodate our living surroundings in a built environment,”O’Sullivan said.
McDonald had “exceptional writing ability”, and was “really articulate, passionate” and had a “detestation of sitting on the fence”.
“His campaigning extended beyond Dublin to other Irish cities, where bad planning had taken over due to the Section 4 process allowing councillors to ram through inappropriate decisions,”O’Sullivan said, recalling how he campaigned against the “bungalow blitz” of rural housing in environmentally sensitive areas.
McDonald was one of only Irish journalists that went to the Rio Earth summit in 1992, and he went to succeeding climate summits every single year.
“They are chaotic events and the fact that he was able to digest everything that was happening and convey that to readers of the Irish Times was brilliant,” O’Sullivan said.
“He was a respected commentator, an international figure, and he explained the complexities of global warming, and could equally recognise the climate tipping points and how we should do meaningful things to arrest that terrible decline. Some accounts of his life don’t even refer to that,”O’Sullivan said.
McDonald “had that sense of nature, how it needed to be and that was why he was particularly taken by the Coastwatch concept”, O’Sullivan said, as it heralded “a new era of citizen science”.
“Frank was an internationalist, and he was interested in current affairs beyond the parochial. Wherever he went, he always inquired about the issues locally,”he said.
O’Sullivan recalled suggesting at McDonald’s retirement that a street should be named after him to honour his amazing legacy.
“That confines him in a sense,”he said, welcoming the concept of an annual “Frank’s Day”.
Patricia Tavares of Portugal, one of first countries to found a coastwatch organisation after Ireland, also paid tribute to his work, as did Angelica Paiu from Mare Nostrum NGO on Black Sea coast and Jose Gracia of Coastwatch Spain.
Tavares said she would like to conclude with some happy news.
“Near Lisbon on a beach we have found this year sea horses – a small colony, which is really wonderful and this only happens when waters are of good quality. So it is amazing, and good news for everyone,”she said.
