He writes occasionally for The Irish Times on culture & travel, presents the RTÉ podcast The Almanac of Ireland, and is author of the award-winning, best-selling Thirty-Two Words for Field (Gill, 2000), and Listen to the Land Speak (Gill, 2022). His illustrated books include Tree Dogs, Banshees Fingers and other Irish Words for Nature. (Gill, 2021) and Wolf-men and Water Hounds (Gill, 2023).

He has made dozens of documentaries on issues of world culture for TG4, RTÉ  & Travel Channel. He's on the board of Hometree, a native woodland & land regeneration charity, and Common Knowledge, a non-profit social enterprise teaching skills for a sustainable homelife. He's an ambassador for The Rivers Trust, and has lived for the last quarter century in an oak wood, with bees, hens, and occasionally pigs, in a grass-roofed house near Lough Lene, Co Westmeath.