As the gradient climbs, I pause for breath. The hinterland has receded to a rumpled patchwork of small fields with the sea on either side. To the east, Scotland hunkers faintly on the skyline; to the west, north Donegal’s undulating forelands lope off into the far Atlantic. I walk on, following the road’s trace, through coarse meadows, cutover bogland and tracts of heather. Across the distance, at the bluff’s rim, Malin signal tower slides like a chess piece in and out of view.
High tide glazes Ineuran Bay, where the modest sea stacks dividing the coves are overshadowed by the crags of the former coastline. This land was uplifted at the end of the last ice age as the press of the glaciers eased. Now there are choughs foraging among the crags’ grassy interstices.
But it’s the rollocking motion on the lower sward that attracts my gaze. Something large and russet is headed my way. It stops to size me up. I see its braced poise; the tilt of its ears; the doe-like eyes.
The Irish hare, Lepus timidus hibernicus, is another legacy of the last ice age. It’s classified as a subspecies, or variety, of mountain hare. However, unlike other mountain hares, the Irish hare rarely moults to white in winter. It’s also more closely related to European mountain hares than to the geographically closer Scottish mountain hare. This genetic heritage reflects the ancestral migration of what would become the Irish hare from Europe across a vanished southern land bridge. Ireland was “islanded” approximately 15,000 years ago, about 7,000 years before Britain, and it was this early isolation that allowed its endemic hare to evolve a uniqueness which arguably merits the status of a separate species.
It’s a lot of history for this gawky graceful creature to carry. Today, the Irish hare is threatened by climate change and habitat loss. It’s also vulnerable to displacement by, and hybridisation with, the non-native brown hare, Lepus europaeus, which was introduced from Britain during the 19th century. Thankfully, coastal habitat is a stronghold for the Irish species, and this individual has decided I’m harmless. It crosses the road in front of me and hirples away.
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