Introduction
Dara Seamus McAnulty BEM (born 31 March 2004) is a naturalist, writer and environmental campaigner from Northern Ireland. He is the youngest ever winner of the RSPB Medal and received the Wainwright Prize for UK nature writing in 2020 after being the youngest author to be shortlisted for the award.
Personal life
McAnulty was born in 2004 and lives with his family near the Mourne Mountains, Northern Ireland. He attended Shimna Integrated College, completing school in 2022, and has since studied natural sciences at Queen's College, Cambridge.
In mid-2021, Monisha Rajesh reported in The Guardian that McAnulty had left Twitter after receiving abuse as a result of having raised concerns about Kate Clanchy's descriptions of autistic students and students of colour in her book Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me. As of April 2024 his profile on X, formerly Twitter, states that he has been a member since June 2016.
He is an ambassador for the RSPCA and the Jane Goodall Institute.
Writings
His debut book Diary of a Young Naturalist which chronicles the turning of his fourteenth year, was released in May 2020. It details his intense connection to the natural world as an autistic teenager. He is the youngest ever author shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for UK Nature Writing, and he won the 2020 prize. He was also awarded the An Post Irish Book Award for Newcomer of the Year. In 2021, he was shortlisted for the Dalkey Literary Award (Emerging Writer) and won the British Book Award for narrative non-fiction.
He has written for The Big Issue, The Guardian, has presented radio for BBC Radio Ulster and has appeared on Springwatch and Countryfile. He has also written and presented for BBC Radio 4's Tweet of the Day. He was a part of "The People's Walk for Wildlife" organised by television naturalist Chris Packham. He is a vocal campaigner on environmental issues.
In June 2021 McAnulty began writing a monthly nature column for The Irish Times.
Awards and recognition
McAnulty's first book, Diary of a Young Naturalist, won the 2020 Wainwright Prize for UK nature writing, after being the youngest author to be shortlisted for the award. His second book, Wild Child, was shortlisted for the 2022 Wainwright Prize for Children's Writing on Nature and Conservation.
He is also the youngest author to be long-listed for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction and for the shortlist for the 2020 Books Are My Bag Readers' Awards, which he won in the non-fiction category.
McAnulty was celebrated in "Points of Light" in 2018 by the UK Prime Minister for his work in connecting young people to nature. His campaigning work against raptor persecution and biodiversity loss earned him the RSPB Medal for Conservation in 2019: the award has been previously won by naturalists such as Sir David Attenborough.
McAnulty was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to the environment and people with autism spectrum disorder.
Bibliography
- Diary of a Young Naturalist. Little Toller Books. 2020. ISBN 978-1908213792.
- Wild Child : A Journey Through Nature. Macmillan. 2021. ISBN 978-1529045321.