*James Organ at Mount Kilimanjaro.
EXPLORING THE BEAUTY of Clare’s nature and wildlife “is almost a kind of mediation” and has given James Organ an appreciation for what surrounds him.
It was during the depths of lockdown that James Organ first decided to start his nature and wildlife page on Instagram, organ.outdoors which has over 500 followers.
The Corofin man says that he first started the page under an anonymous name, “because I didn’t want anyone else seeing it. I started it just as a way to share the photos I had taken. I live in the middle of nowhere and it was just me my family and the wilderness so I’d no choice but to go outside”.
Organ says he chose photography as it was the easiest way for him to get his message across. If people could recognise the beauty of Ireland and Clare’s nature visually, they would surely begin to appreciate it more.
“I always appreciated nature before COVID but I didn’t appreciate what we had around us in Ireland. I was at home, alone, in the middle of nowhere and couldn’t see my friends. I had no choice but to go outside. I’ve upgraded my equipment a small bit since then”, he laughs.
The twenty year old is currently on placement from UL, where he studies PE teaching and
He also finds out time to line out with Corofin in hurling and football while he was part of last year’s Clare U20 hurling panel. “My evenings are all gone playing sport”, he acknowledges but Organ says he still finds solace in his photography and outdoor excursions.
“It’s very peaceful, like it’s almost a kind of meditation when the sun is shining. Sometimes its shining anyway”, he jokes. “I find I’m able to take my mind off things completely whereas before I would’ve obsessed over sport a bit too much. I remember when I put my name on the page first someone said to me ‘Oh I didn’t realise you did other stuff with your life, I thought you just played hurling’”.
James’ best experience so far is clear. In September 2024 he swapped the Burren for Tanzania and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain. Spurred on by an advertisement he saw in college, he undertook the necessary preparations, raising over €5000 through bucket collections and a table quiz.
“It was something I always had on the bucket list. I can remember when I was a child seeing a picture in the paper of some lads who had climbed it and thinking how ‘incredible would that be’’”.
On the climb itself, Organ says “It’s without a doubt the toughest thing I’ve ever done. Altitude sickness is no joke”, he warns. “You have to take your time to climatise. I got hit with the altitude sickness very bad like. We could only get three hours sleep before the summit climb so obviously that wasn’t ideal. There was 25 on the climb and seven had to go down. I was the next to go down but I said to myself that I wouldn’t let that happen. I said to myself ‘James, your either going to die on the mountain or get to the top’,”. Luckily, he achieved the latter.
The Corofin man says he doesn’t know what the future will hold for him. “It’s hard to know, photography is such a difficult thing. I love doing photography but it’s weird now with AI like it’s hard to know which way it’s going to go in the future. I’d like to do anything about nature that’s going to get me places in the future and maybe keep the page going as a side hustle.
“Today it seems like nobody knows anything about nature. I’m only twenty like and if I met someone I tend to know a lot more about nature then them. My knowledge is only increasing so hopefully that will get me places. It already has too, I’ve been asked to do talks which I love, I love sharing my knowledge with people. The thing that most people don’t appreciate is the wildlife that we have around us in Ireland”, he concluded.
