About Kate MacAney
Kate has been fascinated by bats since a pipistrelle flew into her mother’s kitchen one evening in the summer of 1980. She encountered her first lesser horseshoe bat in a cave in County Clare in April 1983 when she began research on the summer behaviour of the species as a student at the university in Galway.
In 1991 she joined the Vincent Wildlife Trust, a UK mammal conservation and research charity, and has spent most of the three decades since then focussed on conserving the lesser horseshoe bat in Ireland and more recently the pine marten and Irish stoat. She retired from the Trust in August 2026 but will continue to highlight the importance of dark skies for nocturnal life forms.
Successfully navigating a career in wildlife without a sense of direction!
Related Speakers and Creators
Michael Chambers
Darragh Ennis
Bettymaya Foott
Declan Holmes
Ella McSweeney
Marina Mulligan
James O’Neill
Andrea Parisi
Richard Sabin
Ready to Plan Your Festival Experience?
Explore the programme to discover talks, night-time events and experiences inspired by Mayo’s dark skies.