"I JUST love tortoises. I love all animals but there's something exotic and charming about tortoises. As a child I had more time for animals than I ever had for toys but as animals go, tortoises were always my favourite."

At 56 years of age and without any formal qualifications in zoology or animal husbandry, Maureen Wallace is considered to be one of the most successful tortoise breeders in Europe.

Since hatching her first tortoise in 1985, she has managed to hatch 70 Spur thighed tortoises, a rare and endangered species of reptile in her back garden in north Dublin. Although this may not seem like a large amount, few zoos have matched her breeding record.

She first encountered tortoises as a six year old while on holiday in Sussex with her parents.

"The people we stayed with had a pet tortoise. That's the first time I ever saw one. When we got home my father bought two tortoises for me which I cared for properly and put in hibernation boxes when winter arrived: Unfortunately vermin got into the boxes and ate them."

She next encountered tortoises in Morocco after the break up of her marriage.

Back in Ireland she purchased two Spur thighed tortoises from Uncle George's Pet Shop in Dublin as a present for her six year old son, Derek.

The family kept them as household pets for a number of years until Tina, the female tortoise, began acting strangely. Unusual behaviour in tortoises is hard to spot but Maureen noticed that Tina was not herself.

As no vet seemed to know what was wrong Maureen brought the animal to Dublin Zoo where it was discovered Tina was carrying eggs.

For the next five years the tortoise laid infertile eggs. "I tried everything, I put her eggs in incubators and the hot press but they never hatched."

In 1986 she met a young zoo keeper called Declan Nolan. He was also trying to hatch tortoise eggs. The two enthusiasts started to exchange information and devised a breeding strategy to breed the first Irish tortoise.

On August 10th, 1989, Speranza, a female Spur thighed hatchling emerged from an egg in a makeshift incubator at the Wallace household. Maureen had managed to hatch the first Irish tortoise by using the moon's cycle as an incubation guide and hatching indicator.

She believes that a tortoise's life revolves around the moon cycle. "I start incubating my tortoise eggs at a full moon and have found that this is successful. It's as simple as that."

Following this success, her reputation as a tortoise expert spread and more species of tortoises arrived at her home: she now keeps four species of tortoises - Spur thighed, Hermann's, Lebanese, and Tunisian - there.

Since 1989, Maureen Wallace has produced more healthy hatchling tortoises by using unorthodox breeding techniques than most zoos.

"Rearing new born tortoises is just like raising children in a container on the top of the television.

"When I get up in the morning I wake them and heat them up under a lamp. I give them a dish of luke warm water and something to eat. Then they go to the toilet. There's nothing magical about it, I treat them just like children."

She attributes her breeding success rate to the fact that her tortoises are happy and content. "If I'm out in the garden I take the tortoises outside to keep me company. They like having a food ramble in the garden."

Commenting on her work, a spokesman for Wild, an exotic animal welfare group, said that such captive breeding programmes were very important for the future conservation of tortoise species.

"This work shows the role that private reptile owners can play in breeding animals and passing them onto other responsible owners rather than into the commercial pet trade."

Over 25 tortoises wander freely in Maureen's house. "I don't believe in caging animals in small boxes and cages. They should be kept as near to nature as possible. I mean, they were never meant to be kept as pets or caged in. Tortoises need freedom."

She plans to devote the rest of her life to researching new captive breeding techniques. "I know that people think I'm an old eccentric who talks to her tortoises. But what saddens me most is that I won't live to see my work completed."

Tortoises can reach 150 years of age and if housed in favourable conditions normally outlive their owners.