When the fashionistas couldn’t see the wood for the trees

By Dick Warner

Monday, January 17, 2011

THERE is a local wood, a Coillte forest park, where I often take my dog for a walk.

Like many similar ones all around the country, it is what is technically called a demesne woodland, meaning that it was originally a plantation around a big house.

In this country the practice of surrounding a large country house with trees, in some cases more than 100 hectares of trees, dates back to the 1700s.

The fashion arose from a new sense of self confidence among the landed gentry. They were no longer afraid woodland would be used as cover by gangs of ambushing rebels and they could afford to plant slow-growing trees for their descendents to enjoy because they were sure their descendents would still be there to enjoy them. The plantations were also a way of showing off, an ostentatious display of wealth.

The woodland where I walk the dog has seen many changes since it was first established, though there are still traces of the original planting. Eighteenth century fashion preferred non-native tree species, primarily beech but also lime, horse chestnut and some sweet chestnut. The only native species they tolerated was oak, and they had a preference for Quercus robur, the English oak.

Two things happened in the following century. A lot more exotic tree species, many from North America, became available to Irish landlords. The prize was the Wellingtonia — the tree we normally call a giant redwood or sequoia. There are several planted near the ruins of the castle in my local Forest Park. Near them are Douglas firs, western red cedars and, from South America, some monkey puzzles.

Another thing that happened in the 19th century was the development of the breech-loading shotgun which led to shooting parties vying with fox-hunting meets as a form of winter entertainment. Originally the fashionable quarry were driven woodcock.

But the woodlands were now mature, with very little in the way of under-storey, and the gamekeepers found that they were useless for attracting and holding woodcock, and not much better for pheasants.

The solution was to underplant with low-growing evergreens. In my local wood you can still come across the remains of this in thickets of Portugese laurel, cherry laurel, etiolated box, holly and snow-berry. The snowberry was planted to provide food for pheasants as well as for cover — unfortunately it was discovered the birds are not very fond of the large white berries.

A bit more detective work reveals traces of the 20th century. There were efforts to make the woodland produce some income. In the early years large trees were dug up and sold to Dublin parks and streets. An oak plantation was established in the 1930s, charcoal burners worked in the wood during World War 11.

But shortly afterwards Lady Caroline, the last of her lineage, donated the wood to the state. Some of it was planted with ‘commercial’ species, first Norway spruce, then Sitka spruce. These didn’t prove commercially successful, though there is still some trade in Christmas trees. Today the main income the wood produces is the car parking charges paid by amenity users.

* dick.warner@examiner.ie

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, January 17, 2011