Best of Mayfly is usually in June

BECAUSE OF the wintry weather during the month of May the May blossom really only came into full flower at the beginning of June.

But then, as if in compensation, there was an unusually fine show, particularly in areas of the country with lime rich soils.

May blossom, like the Mayfly, was named before Pope Gregory revised the calendar. In the Middle Ages the month of May occurred about two weeks later in the year than it does nowadays so best of the blossom and the best of the Mayfly is usually in June.

The small tree or large bush that bears the blossom has many English names. The commonest are hawthorn and whitethorn but in Munster it’s often called ‘skeagh’ or ‘skeaghbush’ from the Irish sceach gheal.

Last winter I went to buy firewood from a man in the midlands and he offered me a choice of ‘ash or bush’. The ‘bush’ was hawthorn and this is the common name for the timber in this part of the country. I took a mixture because they’re both fine timbers on the fire, though the bush needs more seasoning than the ash.

The commonest use for hawthorn is, or was, as a hedging plant. Although it is a native Irish species it appears that much of the hawthorn in our hedges was imported from Britain and the continent in the 18th and 19th centuries because the nursery business was poorly developed in this country.

The eminent botanist Dr Charles Nelson gets quite cross about this. He writes: “plantations of ‘native’ trees and shrubs should not contain imported plants”. Unfortunately it’s still happening in the 21st century and EU rules on seed licensing are contributing to the problem.

There are, or were, other uses for hawthorn. The very young leaves are good in salads and the berries or haws are edible, though they’re not one of the better hedgerow fruits. In the 18th century haws were sold in the Dublin markets and ‘eaten by the poor.’ Apparently you can make a type of bread by grinding them into flour and baking it. I also have a recipe for a liqueur made by steeping the flowers in brandy and sugar, though I haven’t tried it.

Hawthorns are an important tree in folklore. In the past many roads were diverted to avoid disturbing lone thorn trees and the fairies who lived below them. Many of these trees even survive today in our age of relentless development. And most Holy wells have a hawthorn beside them on which the votive offerings are hung.

THE INAUGURAL tree of the Maguire clan in Fermanagh was a hawthorn that grew in Lisnaskea and many individual trees were associated with saints.

Beggar’s Bush is a suburb of south Dublin and the original bush, which seems to have survived into the early 20th century, was a hawthorn. Three hundred years ago the main port connecting Ireland with Britain was in Ringsend. But the port was separated from Dublin by the marshy delta of the River Dodder. There was only one road to the city which crossed the river in Ballsbridge. Strategically placed on this road was a large hawthorn where all the beggars gathered ‘as they do in every port of the world, for their recognised prey, the foreign traveller’.

Another famous tree that actually existed is mentioned in Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘The Deserted Village’.

“The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, For talking age and whisp’ring lovers made!”

Hawthorns have long lives and this tree in the village of Lissoy seems to have survived into the early 19th century when it was ‘knocked down by a cart laden with apple trees which the carter was driving into Ballymahon.’

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