All over Japan each spring, children are taken to the groves of cherry blossom, which are not merely astonishingly and abundantly beautiful but are also a reminder of a past which up until quite recently was primarily rural, and which was infused with the numerous deities which guide and influence the lives of those who live by the Shinto religion.
Things change in Japan as they do here, old mores pass and are forgotten, but the spring-flowering cherry is still held dear and provides an occasion for the family to gather and gaze in picnicking reverence. We have a similar seasonal display in Ireland, which if it occurred in Japan, would no doubt cause a widespread cultural ecstasy, and would prompt excursions to the countryside, but which we largely ignore, as we do with so much that is uniquely ours and is uniquely cherishable, yet remains uncherished.
The display is provided by the hawthorn hedgerows of Ireland, the banks of whitethorn which each Whit come to their great glory and which fill the countryside with great rolling banks of snow-covered hedges. The hawthorn has always been so widespread that in the 8th century legal code it was declared a commoner of the woodland, like the willow, the birch and the alder. The hawthorn was only revered where it grew in isolation, and even today workmen are rightly reluctant to fell one, for it is protected by fairies. It is said that the real curse placed upon the deLorean plant in Belfast came when an old whitethorn was cleared to make way for it.
Defining tree
We take the numerous benefits of the hawthorn for granted, yet with the destruction of the great Irish oak forests, the hawthorn came to be the defining tree of the Irish countryside. In winter its stark blackness can be sheened into a brilliant selection of shimmering dark hues. In spring it is probably the safest nesting-place for our songbirds, whose fledglings are most secure there from the depradations of the magpie. In early summer, right now, it comes to its sumptuous best, when it not merely turns our fields into rolling wolds of white, but of of roseate and golden tints too, well beyond the mastery of any painter's brush, and the air is filled with the sweet marzipan fragrance of the blossom.
The hawthorn is the heart and the soul of the summer landscape. Without the deep banks of dark green, our countryside would be unrecognisable. Charles Nelson says young leaves make an excellent tea and are excellent in salads, and of course in autumn the brilliantly-coloured berries add a departing carnadine to our hedgerows. The haws can also be used to make a jelly - once favoured, but, like so much in our hedgerows today, now much neglected.
So why is it that nobody sings the praises of the hawthorn? You can search through the guidebooks of Ireland in vain for a celebration of the banks of hawthorn which make the Irish countryside so sublime in May. Even Thomas Pakenham's splendid eulogy to great trees that he has known, Meetings With Remarkable Trees, does not even mention the hawthorn. Of course, it does not grow into great specimen examples; on the other hand, in its aggregations, it is perfectly vital to the Irish landscape. Yet who sings its praises, other than Goldsmith?
True jewels
This weekend the usual insane migration to resorts will again cause people to spend the weekend in Arklow gazing at the contorted faces of children in the back of the car in front of them, or in a 20-mile carbon monoxide factory on the Naas dual-carriageway. It is absurd. Go instead to a small field, any small field, anywhere in the country, and admire the true jewels of the Irish countryside, Crataegus monogyna, Sceach Gheal, or the plain hawthorn. Inhale its vapours and pat its honest bark; but beware. Like a dog with a bark, it bites.
The swallow arrives back just as the hawthorn comes into flower, and all my life I have read, and have observed, how swallows never land on the ground - their legs are so weak that they are almost incapable of propelling them upwards. Swallow-flight, I was told and had confirmed for me by own observations, depended on the swallows dropping from a perch and then instantly flying on. I have in fact found land-bound swallows, lifted and thrown them into the air and watched them fly away.
Two swallows
Last summer in West Cork, for the first time I saw two swallows landing on the road, wading through pools as if they were wearing wellingtons, eating insects nearby, and then taking off without any problem. It was a complete contradiction of everything I have learned or read about the little fellows.
This summer, I have seen legions of swallows landing on the ground and helping themselves to food and water as if they were sparrows, and then taking off like rockets the moment they are disturbed. Has some new gene passed through the swallow population, like the peace gene has been transmitted through the Northern paramilitaries, or is there some surgeon in Africa who captures swallows on their winter holidays there, saws the old legs off and sews on small ostrich legs instead? If there is, would he this coming winter please give the swallow a decent singing voice? All that damned tweet-tweeting is driving me mad.