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

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.