Country Diary: The Burren, Ireland

Visitors to Ireland need to be very careful. The country has become quite dangerous. It seems there is a llama lolloping all over Leitrim and the border counties, an eagle owl eking out an existence in Kerry, and - O, St Patrick, where art thou? - serpents innumerable: perhaps a cobra cavorting in Clare, rattlesnakes ranging around Roscommon and maybe capering copperheads in Cork. One thing is almost certain: there is a puma prowling in Tipperary (we have no county beginning with "P"). One beast is missing. Completely sure, undeniably true - there is no longer a Celtic tiger. He/she has disappeared from the scene.

Enter, on stage, the wildest beasts we have, native to the place from time immemorial: cattle. Gone, it seems, are the days when the farmer called his cows by name: Rose, Mildred, Snowflake, Blossom. Now the herds are allegedly rampaging about, and the more recherché the breed, the greater the threat. This is especially true, we are told, of continent-bred cattle - probably angry with the no voters in the Lisbon treaty referendum. Crossbred cattle are said to be more docile than their blue-blooded cousins, reinforcing my predilection for crossbred creatures from the human to pusscats and dogs.

Twice in my life I have been chased by cattle. Once when a child a herd of bullocks raced at me while my terrified mother, far away, looked on and was very relieved to see me leap the hedge. Many years later I took a young Canadian academic, Gordon Teskey, to see Kilcolman Castle. Gordon, having climbed to the top of the ruin, saw me being chased by bullocks. He dashed to my rescue and helped me over the hedge. So, thinking carefully over this alleged new threat to our safety and remembering my own experiences, perhaps the danger was always there. Cattle give us more than they get.