The Painted Lady, Vanessa cardui, is a long-distance migrant that reaches Ireland each summer from North Africa, with numbers varying from a scatter of records in cool years to visible waves in irruption years such as 2009 and 2019. This species has no standard Gaeilge name recorded in An Coimisinéir Teanga terminology or Ó Dónaill’s dictionary.
Identify it in four steps
- Upperside pale salmon-pink to buff-orange base colour, more washed-out than the Small Tortoiseshell’s saturated orange.
- Forewing tip black with a bold pattern of white spots; no blue marginal lunules on either wing (which is what separates it from Small Tortoiseshell).
- Underside marbled pale brown and grey with four small ringed eyespots in a row on the hindwing.
- Wingspan 55 to 75 mm, one of the largest Irish butterflies; a fast, purposeful flight with long glides between nectar sources.
Habitat in Ireland
The Painted Lady arrives in Ireland from May onward and uses open habitat: coastal cliff, cut-over bog, verge, garden, allotment, and any patch of Creeping Thistle (Cirsium arvense) in flower. It has no overwintering strategy in Ireland; a fresh migrant arrival is required every year.
Larvae feed on thistles including Creeping Thistle, Spear Thistle (Cirsium vulgare), and Marsh Thistle (Cirsium palustre), and less often on Common Nettle. Larvae build a silken tent on the foodplant and feed inside. In irruption years second-generation adults produced in Ireland can outnumber the arriving migrants.
Where to see it
- Cape Clear Island, County Cork: the first Irish landfall for many migrants each spring; south-coast bird observatories record the species early.
- the Sheep’s Head peninsula, County Cork: cliff-top thistle stands hold the species through midsummer.
- any south-east coastal garden with Buddleia, County Wexford: August-September nectar sites reliably attract migrants and Irish-bred adults.
Recorded annually across all 26 counties in the National Biodiversity Data Centre atlas 2014-2019, with irruption years (notably 2009 and 2019) producing exceptional counts traced by radar and pan-European citizen recording. Listed Least Concern in the Butterfly Conservation Ireland Red List (2010, revised 2019).
Related species
Recorded in 22 of 26 Irish counties in the National Biodiversity Data Centre atlas, with the strongest concentrations in Munster and eastern Leinster. Numbers dropped through the 2010s and partially recovered from 2019 onward.1
Source: National Biodiversity Data Centre butterfly atlas 2014 to 2019, and Butterfly Conservation Ireland annual review 2024.
