Islands of Ireland: Seen and heard on Rossdohan

An island where New Zealand gum trees, giant ferns and sequoia exist side by side

Tue, 01 Jun, 2021 - 12:25

Dan McCarthy

THIS is an extraordinary island, where New Zealand gum trees, giant ferns, and sequoia exist side by side. You could be forgiven for thinking a tribe of hunter-gatherers, or even King Kong might emerge into an exotic glade in front of you. Where other woods, at this time of year, are carpeted with bluebells, Rossdohan's woods opt for scatterings of purple loosestrife.

The sylvan circumstances play havoc with your sense of scale. One tree has a girth of over 5m; that is about three times the height of the average person. Most of the trees disappear into the heavens in various dimensions, with plentiful new growth to replenish the species. While there are no macaques or quetzals reposing among the branches, a species of mosquito has been identified there, drawn by the hot, damp micro-climate. Other alien insects have also been recorded. Was this a template for a JG Ballard novel with sub-tropical scenarios and Second World War aircraft ditched in the jungle? You might have to be convinced that it isn't.

The 132-acre Rossdohan Island, or Oileán Ros Dochan, derives from 'wood on the promontory' and was joined to the mainland in the 19th century by an arched stone bridge. It is part of the extensive woodlands that extend along the southern Iveragh Peninsula, in Co Kerry, from Sneem to Templenoe, near Kenmare. The Parknasilla Estate is part of the greater woodland and it possesses an archipelago of fractured sandstone islands and islets all of its own.

Dan McCarthy: 'Most of the trees disappear into the heavens in various dimensions, with plentiful new growth to replenish the species'.

Rossdohan also possesses a few satellite islands: Brown, Green, and Illaunrua, named as if someone were referencing a flag. The 1841 census records no persons living on Rossdohan, but there are records of people living there before that.

When the Anglo-Irish surgeon, Samuel Heard, retired from his work in India in 1874, he purchased Rossdohan Island and set about planting an exotic garden in the same manner as the 19th century English gardener, William Robinson. He had by then married the wealthy Australian, Kate Bradley, whose colonial connections sourced many of the trees they planted. In the happy decades they spent there, rearing their family, their imagination saw no boundaries. Tree saplings were brought from Australia and New Zealand, Africa, and South America. Among a myriad of species on the island are the sequoia, eucalyptus, palms, hakea, camellias, rhododendron, flax, and rare silver-tree ferns.

They built a mansion on the island in 1875, but this was destroyed by a conflagration in 1922, in the Civil War, when many other, similar houses were lost to the birth of the nation. In his memoir of the neighbouring island, An Irish Childhood, Peter Somerville Large wrote that Heard's "eccentric house, with its glazed veranda enclosed in stained glass, was destroyed".

Heard had died the previous year, so at least he didn't see the ruination of his life's work. There was a dramatic end to the family's tenure on the island, as the IRA moved in to destroy it. Fearing for their lives, they frantically waved sheets and towels out the mansion's windows at a passing British destroyer, which promptly rescued them. The IRA had among their number some of the family's gardeners, who patiently waited for the family to depart before torching the building.

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There are remains of a later house still visible on the island, on the eastern shore. Its open windows gaze down on the bay, daring you to imagine Victorian scenes. This house was also lost in the 1950s and now just a hulking ruin stands among the bamboo, as a reminder of its glory days. There are also some farmhouses renovated by the Walker family, who later lived on the island.

Rossdohan Island was purchased last year by the Parknasilla Estate and there are plans to restore the gardens to their former majesty. A relative of Kate's, Katharine Lohan, wrote in her autobiography: "No one who has ever been to Rossdohan, even once, can ever forget it. It was exquisitely lovely."