Tucked between the Atlantic winds and stone walls of Galway, a quiet revolution has taken place in the undergrowth. Lisa Clancy, a Galway-based insect photographer and lifelong nature enthusiast, has turned her lens—and her heart—towards the overlooked citizens of Ireland’s ecosystems: insects. Her groundbreaking new book, Insect Portraits, published by Mayo Books Press, is a luminous celebration of Irish insects as they’ve never been seen before.
Launched in perfect harmony with National Biodiversity Week and International Biodiversity Day, Insect Portraits does more than present insects in exquisite detail; it tells their stories. With stunning macro photography and witty, often astonishing prose, Ms Clancy elevates these misunderstood creatures to their rightful place—not just as biological marvels, but as charismatic individuals, worthy of admiration, protection, and perhaps even affection.
Insects are, as the ecologist E.O. Wilson once famously said, “the little things that run the world.” They pollinate our crops, enrich our soils, break down waste, and hold together the threads of entire ecosystems. And yet, despite their vital role, they are vanishing at an alarming rate. But rather than dwell in despair, Insect Portraits brings us a joyful counterbalance—a celebration of the whimsical, the weird, and the wonderful.
For Lisa Clancy, this book was not born from a desire to alarm, but to connect.
“This was meant to be a book purely about insect photography,” she explains. “Each portrait was supposed to be accompanied by a quick two to three sentences at most. Then, by accident, I read about the life cycle of the large blue butterfly. I couldn’t believe what I had read … I became determined to find stories as captivating as this for each of the portraits.”
Humorous tales
It shows. Each image is accompanied by vivid, often humorous tales that invite the reader to marvel. There are bomb-sniffing moths, bacteria that nearly turn entire species female, and flies who’ve lost their ability to hunt but still feel compelled to present a dead insect as a nuptial gift—necessitating creative, sometimes absurd, workarounds. The personalities of each species shine through, not just in word but in the portraiture itself. Somehow, through the technical magic of macro photography, Ms Clancy captures not only the form of each insect, but something deeper—posture, attitude, even expression.
“This was not easy,” Ms Clancy admits. “Posing does not come naturally to insects. And engaging compositions require a subject to be, at minimum, at eye-level with the camera; shot from underneath to truly celebrate the subject.”
There were plenty of challenges along the way. High grass, shifting light, and camera-shy beetles made many shots feel like lessons in patience and humility. “Even when I had found a well-positioned subject, high up on long grass, for example, and had contorted myself into the angle needed to achieve a compelling shot, success was still elusive. Many subjects, without warning, would nonchalantly slip off into the grassy abyss and back to obscurity.”
But Lisa persisted, led by a deep and personal connection to the natural world around her. That connection began in Galway, where her early interest in zoology grew into a lifelong pursuit. After completing a BSc in Zoology at the University of Galway, she went on to earn a Master’s in Biological Photography and Imaging from the University of Nottingham, and later a PhD in Insect Behaviour from Aberystwyth University in Wales. Now based once again in Galway City, Clancy works as a Research Integrity Manager at Compuscript in Shannon—but it’s in the fields, bogs, and back gardens of the west of Ireland that her truest work flourishes.
Timing is poignant
The timing of Insect Portraits could not be more poignant. Biodiversity loss has become one of the defining environmental concerns of our time. Yet public discourse around insects often veers toward the negative—mosquitoes as pests, flies as nuisances, wasps as stingers. In contrast, this book insists we look again. With every magnified detail—the glint of light in a beetle’s compound eye, the intricately laced wings of a lacewing, the fuzzy charm of a bumblebee—Clancy makes a quiet but profound statement: these beings matter.
Published in hardback with a linen binding, Insect Portraits is itself a tactile delight, inviting readers to slow down, flip each page with care, and absorb the curious beauty of lives lived at a scale most of us ignore. Each photograph feels intimate, almost tender. It’s no wonder the book has already drawn high praise.
Manchán Magan, author of Thirty-Two Words for Field, wrote that each portrait is a moment of communion – between the lens and the leaf-hopper, the moth and the moss. Her images do not just depict insects; they dignify them.”
Naturalist Éanna Ní Lamhna marveled at the diversity of insect eyes—striped, faceted, glowing—and declared, “We all do now, thanks to the astounding pictures in this book.”
And Megan Nolan, author of Ordinary Human Failings, lauded the collection as “so surprising, eloquent and revelatory” that it rekindles appreciation for “all the minutiae which surrounds us and too often goes unappreciated.”
Lisa Clancy’s aim, however, is not simply to impress but to inspire. She hopes that by spotlighting the intricacies and oddities of insects, readers will come away with a renewed sense of awe and responsibility. “Admiration,” she believes, “can lead to action.” And if Insect Portraits is any indication, that admiration is contagious.
More than a coffee table book, Insect Portraits is a quiet rallying cry for mindfulness, for conservation, and for seeing the invisible threads that tie our lives to the tiniest of creatures. It reminds us that even in a patch of weeds, a world of stories waits.
So, as National Biodiversity Week unfolds across Ireland, Insect Portraits invites us to look closer—to pause and peer into the underbrush, the flower heads, the bark and moss, where lives of impossible drama and delicate beauty unfold every day.
And perhaps, in doing so, we might rediscover a bit of our own humanity, reflected back in the compound eye of a dragonfly.
Insect Portraits is available now in all good bookshops and online at mayobooks.ie
