ABSTRACT
Attempting to examine a national environmental movement raises difficult preliminary questions of sense and reference. What do we mean by environmentalism in contemporary Ireland, given that it encompasses a broad, multifaceted set of beliefs, claims and actions that manifest themselves in the diverse domains of health, food, religion, philosophy, agriculture, art and, of course, politics? What are its boundaries so that we can identify who is in it and who is out? Is there really, as a recent study suggests (Leonard, 2006), a simple progression and continuity from one protest mobilisation to another so that we can speak of a clearly demarcated environmental social movement? In particular, how are we to categorise local mobilisations that raise, either centrally or marginally, environmental claims? Are they part of an integrated environmental movement?
