I was out on the farm on Tuesday morning, admiring a spider web woven on a hawthorn bush that sits on a ditch between the goat paddock and the Blackland Lane when my good friend Gerald, who was out on a walk, happened to pop his head over the hedge. Gerald is a self-professed arachnophile, and what he doesn’t know about spiders isn’t worth knowing.

Without any need on my part to prompt him, Gerald began talking about his favourite subject. “You know why you’re seeing all these webs, don’t you? It’s September – spider season. They’re everywhere now, spinning their webs.”

I nodded, half-listening, thinking about the list of jobs I had to tackle, but Gerald was just getting started. “You see,” he said, peering over the hedge to get a closer look at the web, “this time of year, spiders are out in force. The males are on a mission to find a mate.” He hesitated for a moment and scratched his chin before continuing. “All summer long, they’re laying low, but once the weather starts to turn, they get bolder, more visible. That web there, that’s likely the work of a Garden Spider – Araneus diadematus.”

He pointed to the intricate threads glittering in the morning dew. “They’ve been living all around us all year, you know,” he went on, “but you’d hardly notice them until now, when the males are doing their utmost to attract a mate.”

“How do they attract a mate?” I asked, forgetting my to-do list.

“The males start wandering,” Gerald answered, “and the females set up their webs, ready for the suitors to come by.”

I glanced at the web again, appreciating the delicate symmetry. “Why do we only see them in September and October, then?” I asked.

Gerald grinned, clearly pleased I was taking an interest. “Well, most of them outside won’t last past the first real frost, and that might happen by early November so their instinct now is to mate, you see, the females lay their eggs now, and those eggs will survive the winter, hatching in spring to create the next generation.”

“So they all die at the start of winter?” I asked.

Gerald shrugged. “Well, the outdoor ones, yes—most of them die off—but the ones that live inside, like those big House Spiders that give people a fright, they’ll hang about all winter if it stays warm enough. You’re never really rid of them.”

I could almost hear Ber’s voice in my head, reminding me about the spiders she’d seen lately. “So, they’re always around, then, even if we don’t see them?” I asked.

“Exactly,” Gerald said, with a knowing look. “In fact, no matter where you are, you’re never more than six feet away from a spider. Think about that for a minute. You might not see them, but they’re there, in the corners, in the crevices, doing their bit for the ecosystem.”

That made me laugh. “Six feet, you say? So I’ve got plenty of company on the farm, even when I’m alone.”

“More than you think!” Gerald chuckled. “Take this patch of ground here.” Using his walking stick, he indicated a circle about himself . “In a space about that size, there could easily be a thousand spiders. And if you really wanted to, you could find up to 50,000 spiders on your Bare Acre.” He used his walking stick to indicate the farm confined by its ditches. “You see, they’re everywhere, and they’re working behind the scenes, catching pests and keeping the balance.”

“Good to know they’re earning their keep,” I muttered, still marvelling at the fact that I shared my farm with so many of them. “But what about those False Widows everyone’s been talking about? Should we be worried about them?”

Gerald’s expression softened. “Ah, the Steatoda nobilis, the False Widow. They’ve made their way over here all the way from the Canary Islands, probably came in on some of those imported fruit or vegetables you’re always giving out about,” he shrugged. “And while people get nervous about them, they’re not as dangerous as they’re made out to be. Their bite is rare, and for most people, it’s no worse than a bee sting. They’re just settling in, like any other species.”

I thought about that for a moment, watching a spider crawl along the hawthorn branch. “Still,” I said, “I wouldn’t want to get too close to one.”

Gerald shrugged. “They’re just trying to get by, like the rest of us. And think of what they do for us—every year, spiders in Ireland alone consume over 400 tons of insects. Without them, your farm would be swarmed by flies, mosquitoes, and other pests.”

As he spoke, the morning sun caught the dew on the spider web, making it shimmer. There was something undeniably beautiful about it—the fragile strength of each thread, the symmetry, the patience it must take to weave such a thing. I couldn’t help but admire it, even if I wasn’t as enamoured with spiders as Gerald was.

“You know, Gerald,” I said, “I never thought I’d be standing here praising spiders this morning, but you’ve made a fair case for them.”

He smiled. “They’re essential,” he said. “And they’ve been a part of Irish storytelling for centuries. Did you know that in old Irish households, a spider spinning a web was seen as a sign of good luck? People would never kill a spider indoors for fear of bringing bad fortune. Spiders were protectors, of sorts.”

I laughed. “My father used to say the same thing. Said they kept bad luck out of the house. He’d leave their webs up in the corners of the barn, said they kept the mice away too.”

“See?” Gerald said. “We’ve known for generations that spiders aren’t just creepy-crawlies. And remember the legend of St. Columba? When he was hiding from his enemies, a spider spun a web across the entrance to his cave. His pursuers saw the intact web and thought the cave was empty, so they moved on. That spider saved his life.”

I nodded, impressed by how deeply spiders were woven into our culture, just like their webs were woven into the fabric of nature around us.

“Funny you mention that,” I said. “You’d think, with all these good omens and stories, people wouldn’t be so quick to squash a spider when they see one.”

Gerald shrugged. “Old habits die hard. But like the saying goes, ‘If you want to live and thrive, let a spider run alive.’ They’ve been around longer than we have, and they’ll be here long after we’re gone, so we might as well appreciate the good they do while we’ve got them.”

I watched as he turned to leave, already talking to himself about some new bit of spider trivia he’d picked up. Gerald had always been like that—a fountain of knowledge, with a tendency to vanish just as quickly as he’d appeared.

As he walked away, I couldn’t help but notice the way he moved—quick, darting, almost like he was scuttling from one shadow to the next. I shook my head, smiling to myself.