NEW LIFE:Growing up in a disadvantaged part of Dublin, a love of birds and falconry gave Trevor Roche wings, writes ADRIENNE MURPHY
TREVOR ROCHE (40), known locally as “the hawk man”, is a natural storyteller from Coolock in Dublin.
“As a kid,” he says, “I was keen on tigers and sharks and other predators. But when I was eight, I saw a programme on the telly which showed an African eagle take a monkey out of a tree. I thought, this is just amazing.
“At school I did a project on birds of prey. My teacher called my father to the school and said, ‘Your son is never going to be academic. But did you see what he produced?’ He hadn’t seen the project, I had kept it hidden. When he was called to the school I thought I was in big trouble, because I’d ripped pages out of a book from the library in Coolock to illustrate the project.
“But, in fact, the teacher was giving me good comments, saying to my father, ‘This is the way I’d bring him, down this road.’
“So my father, thank God, joined me up with the Irish Hawking Club, and wrote my first application for a bird at 10 years of age. I was the youngest hawker in Ireland at the time, back in 1979. My first bird was a kestrel.”
We’re in the conservatory at the back of Roche’s house in Swords. Tess, a pointer dog, does her best to get my attention, but it’s a tough call when there’s a huge Arctic snowy owl sitting calmly on the armrest of the couch. The owl snuggles up to be petted, blinking her large yellow eyes and screeching sweetly.
“She was reared by humans, not bird-parents,” Roche assures me. “She looks at humans as her food source and family, so she’s completely tame and safe. She’s a big attraction to the kids – a real Harry Potter owl. They can touch her . . .but you don’t touch the hunting birds.”
Outside in the back garden, tethered to stands, are two such hunters. One is a peregrine falcon, the same bird that I saw Roche fly spectacularly in the grounds of Airfield House in Dundrum last summer, to the amazed gasps of hundreds of children.
In the garden outside, when it begins to lash rain, the falcon dips his body energetically and flutters his wings. Roche explains that the rain makes him think he’s bathing in shallow water. The other bird in the garden – a majestic cream and tan creature – has a much more severe, commanding presence than the falcon. She views her companion’s antics with what appears to be mild disdain, through classically intense hawk eyes.
“She’s me beauty,” says Roche. “A Finnish goshawk. She’s short-winged for going through forests and hedges. She kills birds and mammals by surprise and attack, whereas falcons are long-winged, because they hit feather quarry out in mid-air from a height.
“Hawks are much more highly strung than falcons, very temperamental. They’re incredibly intelligent.
“There’s an ultimate respect between herself and myself, and this is what’s so fascinating. To go hunting with a bird of such power – it’s quite unbelievable. Anything she hits is gone. Even talking to you now about it, I can feel the little hairs standing up on the back of my neck.”
Come April, these birds will join seven others at Roche’s brand new Falconry and Hawking Centre at Rathbeggan Fishing Lakes near Dunshaughlin in Co Meath.
Having worked for 12 years as a butcher, and a further 11 years as a taxi driver – all the while following his hobby of hunting with and flying birds of prey – Roche is finally transforming his passion into a full-time business.
Transporting his birds to schools for display, or hosting school excursions at the Rathbeggan centre, will form the bulk of Roche’s work Monday to Friday, with the weekends given over to falcon air displays, hunting days out, hawk walks and private lessons in flying and hunting.
Already he displays and flies his birds at heritage events, while future plans include entertaining guests at birthdays and weddings, catering for the corporate sector (for which the centre at Rathbeggan has the added appeal of fishing and archery), and small-scale specialist breeding of hunting birds and dogs.
“I’d like to put this bird centre up on the top rung,” says Roche. “From my 30 years of learning, I can teach people where to get a bird, and how to licence it; I can build pens, I can provide the food . . . It’s a one-stop shop.
“Whereas in all these years I’ve had to struggle to go to England to get my bits and pieces, and gather together a lot of information that wasn’t given out readily and freely. It was a closed sort of a market.
“Now I’m gonna throw it out there. But at the same time, if I don’t see that the person is suitable after doing a course with me, he won’t be getting a bird that I breed. My main concern is the welfare of the birds.
“For every bird that I supply, I’ll have the name and address of where that bird is.
“And I will do random checks,” Roche adds emphatically. “I want to make sure the right type of people get the birds. But I’ve also seen, with my own eyes, how when the wrong type of people get them, it can turn them good.”
Roche feels that his experience dealing with the public for many years has given him excellent social skills for his falconry business.
“Historically, it’s been a very elite sport,” he says. “Now, I don’t speak properly all the time. I do have mistakes in my grammar. But that doesn’t stop me.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about getting a bird in the sky, and I do it quite well.
“I’m proud of what I do, and I’m proud of what I’ve achieved and I’m proud of what I’ve learned. I’m the ordinary Joe Soap, who has a good way with people, and because of that I believe I can capture a big big market.
“I specifically want to reach kids with special needs,” Roche adds, “and other kids that aren’t so much special needs, but are on the way – troubled, deprived children, the kids who’d be veering off into crime fairly fast. That’s another area to go and capture. I guarantee you, if you can put falconry into their lives, it can wean them away from crime.
“The fellas that I grew up with in Coolock, while a lot of them were going the wrong way, I was out in the fields and going to bed early, because I had to get up early to fly my birds.
“My parents always knew where I was at 10pm, they never had to go around the corner looking for me. No doubt about it, the birds kept me on the straight and narrow. Being that close to nature keeps you in tune.”
For more information, visit www.dublinfalconry.com