Obituary: Ethna Viney, feminist, scientist and long-time nature columnist known for her energy and warmth

Ethna Viney, who has died at the age of 95, was a feminist, scientist, economist, socialist and long-time environmental writer for The Irish Times.

President Michael D Higgins described her as a “brilliant innovator”, and said her “dedication to nature and great expression of its wonder and kindness was given exceptional and enduring expression throughout her career.”

Such was her work ethic that during the three decades of her ‘Eye on Nature’ column, she would reply to every single query received — though this could run to up to 100 emails daily, according to colleague and friend Deirdre McQuillan.

Born Ethna McManus, she came from Cavan, where her father, James, was a civil servant, and her mother, Mai Penrose, a bank official. She studied science at university, graduating in 1957, and for a time worked as a pharmacist in Killala, Co Mayo.

Close friend Carmel Campbell met her through the Save the West group which was campaigning for a better economic future for the western seaboard, and had as members socialists Fr James McDyer and Peadar O’Donnell and republican and socialist Séamus Ó Mongáin.

“Ethna was full of vim and vigour and passion about the campaign, and would be off down planting trees in Tully Cross for environmental reasons,” Campbell recalled.

“Ó Mongáin felt she was very articulate and persuaded her to go back to university and study economics, which she did,” she added.

Having moved to Dublin, she worked in print journalism and also as a television producer with RTÉ. She met Michael Viney, when she submitted an article to The Irish Times on the subject of new Anglo- Irish trade agreements.

Viney was struck by the energy and dynamism of this young woman with a “long blonde ponytail” and they married in 1965 within a year of meeting each other.

“Ethna asked if I would make her wedding outfit,” Campbell remembered. The one condition her friend set was that she mustn’t be asked to “give up her pint” while preparing for fittings for the dress.

When in 1977 the couple decided to leave their media careers in Dublin for a life of self-reliance on the Atlantic shore, she embraced the opportunity with customary energy and optimism.

At their new home at Thallabawn, beyond Louisburgh, where they reared their only daughter, Michele, her husband began to write a weekly column, ‘Another Life’ for The Irish Times, with the encouragement of then editor Douglas Gageby.

Ethna found time to pursue her own interests in economics, politics and feminism, while working with Michael on books and documentaries for RTÉ and TG4.

Lelia Doolan, the film-maker and former head of light entertainment at RTÉ, said Viney was “part of that first wave of Irish feminism which started in the 1960s — along with poet Eavan Boland, historian Margaret MacCurtain, Irish Times journalist Mary Maher and Catherine Rose.”

Doolan said that Ethna Viney’s writings, including the pamphlet Ancient Wars: Sex and Sexuality and her book, Dancing To Different Tunes: Sexulaity and its Misconceptions, “charted male-dominated interpretations of sexuality that injured women’s happiness, mothers’ equality and their civil rights”.

However, she added: “But that was only a small part of it” noting Viney’s “gift for friendship, the warm heart, the caring and minding of a husband from whose limelight in public she always put herself in the shadow.”

She maintained an intense curiosity and enthusiasm, reflected in her weekly column which ran from 1988 until 2021. She co-authored several works with Michael, including the seminal Ireland’s Ocean: A Natural History, published in 2008.

“My parents were very much a double act,” recalled their daughter Michele. “We would have all sorts of people to dinner at Thallabawn — poets, economists, farmers — and I got such a wonderful education at that table.”

​Writing in 2015 about their move to Mayo, Michael Viney credited his wife’s major role in upping sticks.

“Left to myself, as a closet romantic, the mere hunger for the wild and beautiful and for making my days my own would not have taken me very far,” he said. “But Ethna’s instinct is for solving problems, for systems and making things happen.

“In one surreal conclusion, Ethna drove us across to Mayo at a steady 40km with three buzzing hives in the trailer and a few loose bees trying to keep up…”

Michael predeceased Ethna, dying a year ago in May 2023, at the age of 90.

She is survived by her daughter Michele, sister Eva, brother Bert, nephews, nieces, the extended Viney and McManus families and a wide circle of friends.

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