Tree found on Waterford farm dates from 3,500 years ago

The bog oak exudes an almost alarming sense of presence and is indefinably moving to touch.

Tom Joe Murphy seen admiring a large piece of 3,500-year-old bog oak which he found near his home at Knockanore near Tallow, Co Waterford. Picture: Howard Crowdy

A large section of tree trunk stored in a farmyard shed in west Waterford occupies a unique position in Ireland and Britain’s arboriculture.

The darkened remnants, weighing a half ton, are what is left of a once-majestic oak that tumbled into an adjacent bog over 3,500 years ago.

Dendrochronological testing has revealed it to have been 605 years old at the time it fell, making it the oldest grown tree ever tested in either country, and outdating its nearest rival by 150 years.

Gnarled and fractured, it exudes an almost alarming sense of presence and is indefinably moving to touch.

Landowner Tom Joe Murphy unearthed the tree in 2016 while clearing a drain on his 72-acre farm in Knockanore, some 12km from Tallow.

“It was about five feet down and not easy to dig out”, he says.

Tom Joe was already preserving a multitude of bog oak he had extracted over 25 years earlier, which he intended to market some day.

Tom Joe Murphy with his 3,500-year-old piece of oak, which was found in a bog near his home. Picture: Howard Crowdy

Informed by the National Museum of Ireland, in 2018 he sent a slice of the trunk to Queen’s University Belfast for dendrochronological testing by world-renowned tree expert and university Fellow David Brown.

Dendrochronological testing interprets a tree’s age through its ring sequences, with each sequence representing one year.

It can also define a tree’s birth date and demise.

Mr Brown was astonished to discover the oak’s age.

“I’ve tested over 7,000 trees from Britain and Ireland, but never encountered any beyond 400 years old”, he says.

You’d find older grown trees in mainland Europe or America, for various climatic or cultural reasons, but this was just amazing. It gets mentioned at conferences.” 

The analysis further revealed that the tree’s life began in 1652 BC and that it was in full health when it collapsed, possibly during a storm, in 1048 BC.

Natural salts and minerals, the total absence of oxygen in the clay bog, and its own tannin fossilised the tree, turning it black and hard.

“The bark was still on the trunk when I raised it,” adds Tom Joe.

A large piece of bog oak unearthed from a bog at Tom Joe Murphy's farm near Tallow. Picture: Howard Crowdy

David subsequently visited the farm, but analysis of other trees suggested the old oak was “a one-off occurrence”.

Meanwhile, 80-year-old Tom Joe has engaged web designer Midaza to help market his many earlier extractions, which nonetheless lay entombed for between 2,000 and 4,000 years.

Vastly varied in size and shape, the pieces are “as they were, when taken from the bog and would make ideal natural sculptures”, he says, adding that “all prices are negotiable”.

He also welcomes interests and suggestions towards nature’s older masterpiece in his farmyard shed.

See waterfordbogoak.ie