Poison weed is having a field day

THISTLE, ragwort and dock — noxious weeds according to the old posters which pointed out that all landowners on whose lands they were ‘in evidence’ were liable to prosecution.

These posters were displayed in many Garda stations decades ago. I recall gardaí in the Whitechurch/Rathduff area near Cork city cycling out to warn farmers about the concentration of these weeds, particularly ragwort — the yellow one.

On many farms (including our own) we had either to cut or pull them by hand or, if the concentration was very dense, cut them with a horse-drawn mower before they were collected and burned.