An Irishman's Diary

HAVE you ever visited your household’s millennium tree? No? Me neither. Of course I’ve been meaning to for years, but you know how it is: there’s always something else to do first.

In our case, the planting of the tree in our household’s name followed closely upon the planting of the actual household, with all the chaos that brings. Somewhere in the process of rising human children, we lost our tree’s birth certificate, and with it any sense of connection to the project. Shamefully, I don’t even know if the little thing is an oak, an ash, a birch, or a Scot’s pine. I think it lives in Westmeath somewhere.

What with National Tree Week starting next Sunday, this might be a good time to try to establish contact. Not that one would be able to find the individual sapling. The best Coillte’s database can promise is to identify an area of about 30 square metres wherein our millennium tree resides. So hugging it would not be an option, even if that felt right.

In these recessionary times, however, it might be therapeutic to visit the general location. The millennium trees didn’t quite match the growth in property values in the early years of this decade, I gather. But they’re getting into their stride now. Unlike other investments, they are expected to achieve double-digit growth rates this year, regardless of the banking crisis.

The latest National Tree Week will be the 25th in the series. It is, incidentally, more of a State Tree Week, being confined to the Republic. The North’s equivalent is, like Britain’s, in November: only our rivers, etc. In any case, the Tree Council of Ireland’s aim is to foster “a tree and wood culture” throughout the jurisdiction. And a quarter of a century on, it still has its work cut out.

This is a country where, despite ash being one of our most common native species, 60 per cent of the wood used in making hurleys has to be imported. Much of it comes from the UK, including – gasp! – the royal forests. Which raises the embarrassing possibility that Queen Elizabeth could be indirectly supplying hurleys to King Henry (Shefflin). And to think we made such a fuss about her anthem being played in Croke Park.

Our relationship to trees in general is no better. In Ireland, having an interest in forestry without a professional excuse is still widely regarded as eccentric. Openly expressing affection for trees marks you as a Protestant. In fact, at least one of these stereotypes was reinforced by a wonderful book published a decade or so ago.

Its author, Thomas Pakenham – or the Eighth Earl of Longford, to give him his stage name – was a self-confessed tree hugger, although not as a matter of routine. He had been driven to such extremes by a sort-of family emergency.

The starting point for his Meetings with Remarkable Treeswas a weather forecast in January 1991 predicting that a very severe storm was about to hit Ireland. The news provoked him to visit the 19 old beeches on the ancestral estate at Tullynally and to wonder ruefully why he hadn't looked at them more carefully before.

They were 100 feet high, probably 200 years old, and their prospects of seeing out the storm were not good. So he took all their measurements for posterity: “And as I taped each tree, I gave it a hug as if to say ‘good luck tonight’.” It was a wise precaution. Over the next 36 hours, the estate turned into a field hospital, with every wave of the storm producing new casualties. By the end, 12 of the giant beeches lay slain.

That and a separate epiphany in faraway China persuaded Pakenham to devote a book to “the biggest living things on these islands”. The largest, as he said, could weigh 30 tons, cover 2,000 square yards, and include 10 miles of twigs and branches, serviced by a hydraulic system capable of pumping huge quantities of water 100 feet into the air.

The oldest – the yew – could stand for several millennia, making it the most ancient living thing in Europe or Asia. Of one such tree, in a churchyard in England, Pakenham speculates: “The Celts may have decorated its branches with the heads of their victims. It may live to see our descendants flying to Mars.” And yet, as he said, we take these magnificent things for granted. Witness the great elms of southern England: “immemorial” to Tennyson, painted by Turner and Constable, and in recent times all but wiped out by a bark beetle carelessly imported from Africa.

It is because of such tragedies that I intend to make a conscious effort to learn more about forestry during Tree Week, whether or not this involves a visit to the family sapling.

Indeed, I note that while 1.2 million millennium trees were planted, far fewer than this number will reach adulthood. Some will thrive naturally; others will fail; and there will be a cull in a few years’ time to reduce numbers to more sustainable levels. It may be just as well, therefore, that individual trees cannot be identified. Better not to get emotionally involved.

A full listing of National Tree Week events is available at www.treecouncil.ie.