A Sheepdog Named Oscar: Love, Loss, and Interspecies Companionship in Rural Ireland

A moving memoir of grief, healing, and the unbreakable bond between man and dog, set against the lush backdrop of rural Ireland.

After the sudden loss of his father, film scholar and father of two boys, Dara Waldron finds unexpected solace in Ireland’s East Clare region. There, on an abandoned farm, he encounters a lone, enigmatic border collie--Oscar. What begins as an animal rescue gradually evolves into a profound companionship that helps Waldron navigate his grief.

Oscar is no ordinary dog. A working sheepdog by nature, his instincts pull him to charge ahead--yet always return. As Waldron embarks on daily walks through misty woodlands and along rugged hillsides, their bond deepens. Each step through the Irish countryside becomes part of a ritual of recovery, trust, and understanding.

In spare, lyrical prose and accompanied by cinematic images of Oscar’s life, A Sheepdog Named Oscar is more than a story of a man and his dog--it’s a meditation on place, memory, the call of the wild, and the quiet strength found in nature and companionship. With reflections on cinema, art, and animal consciousness, Waldron crafts a uniquely soulful memoir that explores the emotional terrain of loss and the redemptive power of connection.

For readers of Jon Katz, Helen Macdonald, and nature-infused memoirs, A Sheepdog Named Oscar is a poignant reminder that sometimes the path to healing begins with a four-legged guide.

Dara Waldron is a film scholar and author of two monographs and multiple articles in international film journals and magazines: Millennium Film Journal, Alphaville, and MIRAJ among others. His 2018 book New Nonfiction Film: Art, Poetics and Documentary Theory is a standard reference for documentary filmmaking courses across the globe. He teaches Critical and Contextual studies at Limerick School of Art and Design and has been a visiting Professor at Aalto University in Helsinki, LUCA School of Arts in Brussels, and the Ethnography Lab at University of Colorado, Boulder. In 2023 he published a study of sheepherding traditions documented in the 2009 film Sweetgrass (dir. Barbash, Castaing-Taylor) that included auto-ethnographic reflection on herding practices and farming in Ireland. A Sheepdog Named Oscar: Love, Loss, and Interspecies Companionship in Ireland’s Midwest, an extension of this study, is his first memoir. Born in Manchester and raised in Ireland, he currently lives on the border between County Limerick and Tipperary in Ireland’s Midwest, in the shadow of the Silvermines Mountains and close to the gates of well-known Glenstal Abbey and its school, which feature prominently in his memoir.