Randal Plunkett, 21st Baron of Dunsany

Plunkett was born on 8 March 1983 in New York City, where his parents were living at the time operating an architectural and design studio.[4] He is the elder of the two children (both sons) of the 20th Baron of Dunsany, the painter, sculptor and designer Eddie Plunkett, and his Brazilian wife, architect Maria Alice de Marsillac Plunkett (née Villela de Carvalho). Aside from his younger brother, he has a step-sister Joana and a step-brother Daniel, both older,[5] and the four children grew up together.[4] On the paternal side, he is the great-grandson of the 18th Baron of Dunsany, the playwright and author of fantasy stories and novels usually known as Lord Dunsany, and grandson of his half-Brazilian namesake, British Indian Army Lieutenant Colonel Randal Plunkett.[4] He is descended from the Earls of Jersey, and the family of explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton. On the maternal side, his family traces its origins through centuries of Brazilian history, to key figures from the founding days of Brazil as a Portuguese territory, Vasco da Gama and Pedro Álvares Cabral. His grandfather was a colonel turned architect.[1] He also has two aunts and an uncle.[4][1]

The Plunkett family subsequently moved, first to London, where Eddie Plunkett had a studio in 1993, and then, in 1994, to the Plunkett homeland in Ireland, going to live at Dunsany Castle, where the then Lord Dunsany was living with his second wife.[5][4] For primary school, Randal Plunkett attended a local school and the private Headfort School outside Kells, then took his Junior Certificate at The King's Hospital on the outskirts of Dublin. He pursued senior secondary studies at Institut Le Rosey, a boarding school in Rolle and Gstaad, Switzerland, and at a pre-college centre in Oxford, where he studied the classics, English literature and sociology. He credited some of his inspiration around film to one of his teachers there, Louise Longson,[6] and has said that, in discussion with her, he moved his focus from sociology to film and scriptwriting, interests since childhood, when his father introduced him to the work of, for example, Luis Buñuel at the age of 6 and Ingmar Bergman at 7, and paid pocket money for short stories and illustrations.[7][8]

Plunkett lived for some years in central London and studied for a degree in Film Studies at Kingston University in southern London. He returned to Ireland after graduation, to help care for his father, who was suffering from a long-term neurological illness, and during this period he worked on a potential career in sports science, considering opening a gym, or working as a personal trainer.[6] Encouraged by his parents, he later returned to the idea of working in film, and pursued an intensive course in Digital Video[3] with an emphasis on practical skills, at the SAE Institute, from the Amsterdam campus of which he graduated with a diploma.[8] He later studied further at the SAE branch in London, where he met a future collaborator, cinematographer Stefano Battarola.[9]

Plunkett began his filmmaking career around 2009, producing and directing a range of short films, which have been shown at various film festivals. His directorial debut was the dark-toned thriller Kiss Kiss (2010), set in London, and shown at the Leicester Square Odeon. He then returned to Ireland, producing Guerrilla, directed by Blaine Rennicks and starring Jack Lowe and Darren Killeen, on the Dunsany lands from winter 2009.[10][11] The low-budget film, with a crew of 40, was based on a concept of Ireland under martial law after social collapse in Europe in 2013, and was released in 2010.[9] It won the "Best Production" award at the Naas Film Festival.[10] This was followed by the "grindhouse horror"-style Prey (2011). Plunkett's 4th short film, written with some autobiographical elements,[6] was Walt (2011), which won the Best Drama Award at the LIT Festival. Plunkett has used his estate lands and buildings, some partly ruinous, as locations for much of his filming after Guerrilla, including for Prey and Walt.[8]

Plunkett's cited influences include Philip K. Dick and directors Roman Polanski, David Lynch and Peter Greenaway,[12] and influential films include Hitchcock's The Crows and both Andrei Tarkovsky's and Steven Soderbergh's productions of Solaris. He has mentioned that while he would not be a deep fan of his great-grandfather's work, he would see some parallels of interests between his film work and the 18th Lord Dunsany's imaginative writings.[6]

Plunkett is a practitioner of and advocate for rewilding.[34][8][35] He became a vegan in 2014, adhering to a strict dietary code and also not wearing leather clothing or shoes. Around the same time, he came across the then-novel concept of rewilding land.[17] Having initially moved Dunsany to organic farming, and discontinued chemical pesticide usage, he subsequently designated 750 acres (300 ha) of the Dunsany Estate (of at least 1,500 acres) as a nature preserve, with several hundred acres of forestry, and with farming on the remaining land – rented to local people – limited to crops such as wheat, rapeseed and beans only. He has also ceased cutting the decorative lawns around Dunsany Castle, in particular aiming to create a wildlife meadow in front of the building. He has spoken of an at-times negative reaction among some local people to the change of use for prime farming land, decried as wasteful.[8][36] Dunsany Nature Reserve is Ireland's largest privately-owned nature reserve, and as of 2022 is the only Irish rewilding project recognised by the European Rewilding Network.[37] Plunkett has also banned hunting, whether on horseback or on foot, on his lands, which he has said resulted in threats, but does not plan to remove heritage items with hunting connections from the castle. He has described persistent attempts to break into the lands by trespassing hunters and poachers and he has a patrol routine, and has also support from volunteers and a camera setup. Small groups are allowed a visit by arrangement but Plunkett has said he does not plan structured paths and signage, or visitor attraction facilities such as a café.[36] He has worked with a local hotel in the nearest village, Kilmessan, to facilitate guests who would like to visit the estate, with an option to sponsor tree-planting.[38] The rewilding project receives no external funding, State or private,[39] although around 14,000 euro was allocated in 2020 by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media for urgent works on the castle and walled garden, on which he and his family and staff have been working.[40] The potential revival of a former railway line which used to pass through the estate near the River Skane has been noted as a concern.[39]

Plunkett has noted the first appearance of the Great Spotted Woodpecker in County Meath, confirmed by Niall Hatch of BirdWatch Ireland,[39] and the return of corncrakes, barn owls and red kites, as well as peregrine falcons, herons, buzzards, kestrels and sparrowhawks, to his lands since his rewilding project began.[17][36][35] Stoats and endangered pine martens have also moved in, while otters have been seen around the small river on the lands, and even red squirrels have been sighted.[17][36][35] These join rabbits, hares, deer, bats and other established animal types.[17][36][35] Plunkett has also announced plans for reforestation with long-living native Irish tree species,[8] and the estate has seen a growth in diversity of flora, going from three varieties of grass to 23.[36] He is also working with local wildlife rescues, rehabilitating and rehoming rescued wildlife, including hedgehogs, foxes and badgers, having allowed the rescues to set up dedicated facilities for these animals, as well as accepting rescue birds.[17] A facility for rescued otters has been set up on the estate's former tennis court.[41] Plunkett is also collaborating with the Irish Bee Conservation Project, who have set up a number of bee lodges for solitary bees as well as native Irish black bees. Botanists from Trinity College Dublin are studying the ecological impact of the rewilding project[36] and have observed significant numbers of butterflies.[39]

Plunkett was nominated for the Farming for Nature Awards in 2021, with a citation for the commitment to, and success to date of, the project,[34] and in 2021 a calendar featuring scenes from the rewilded estate was produced for sale by photographer Daniel Fildes, featuring both returned species such as red kites and buzzards, as well as pheasants, foxes and deer, and both kingfishers and their prey, fish, in the once-polluted River Skane.[42]

In 2013, Plunkett appeared in the final episode of the second season of TLC's reality television series Secret Princes, in which his brother Oliver was appearing as a series regular.[43]

Since 2019, Plunkett and his Dunsany Nature Reserve have been portrayed on radio, TV and in print and news agency reports local and international. TV and news agency features include Euronews,[44] AFP,[45] and the German Deutsche Welle,[46] as well as Ireland's RTÉ One show Nationwide.[47] Articles have been published in print media including The Guardian,[36] Vice (magazine),[48] Eluxe[49] and The Irish Times.[50] Plunkett has also participated in radio interviews, such as with the local LMFM[51] and national stations Today FM[52] and RTÉ Radio.[53][54][55]

He has active online presences on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, where he routinely posts images from Dunsany Nature Reserve and information about his film work.[56]

Randal Plunkett's father died in 2011 after a long illness, and was buried by the Church of St Nicholas on the estate, and the estate was run thereafter by Plunkett with support from his mother. Maria Alice Plunkett died in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020, and her son and a local priest held a private funeral for her, due to Covid-related restrictions; she is buried beside her husband.[57]

Having previously been in a relationship with Irish actress Emma Eliza Regan,[7] Plunkett met his partner, occupational therapist Laura Dillon, in Mullingar.[15] He visited her in the town and with much of his film, The Green Sea filmed there, she appeared in it with her mother in one scene.[15] Plunkett and Dillon announced their engagement formally in November 2020.[58] The heir to the castle and estate is their daughter. Plunkett has stated that his child will inherit the property, while as of 2022 the title would still pass elsewhere, due to what he has described as medieval provisions reserving inheritance of most titles to males, but he has expressed hope this situation may be changed.[17][59]

Like his father, the 21st Lord Dunsany — closest living relative of Catholic archbishop, martyr and saint Oliver Plunkett — and his mother, Plunkett adheres to the Roman Catholic faith,[60] and he has stated, in an interview with the UK's Catholic newspaper, The Tablet, that his daughter will be baptised, probably in Dunsany's 15th-century carved baptismal font.[59] Plunkett works with others on the literary heritage of his great-grandfather.

• Dunsany Productions website