A bookshop you may not know very well in Dublin, is that of the Government Publications Sales Office. Many small well-produced booklets and pamphlets. You learn a lot, Dubliner or culchie or stranger, from a slim production Nature in the Phoenix Park. Some lovely illustrations, too. What do you want to know? Size? Well, it's 1752 acres, and described as "one of the largest enclosed parks in the world." All the fine monuments and houses are there - and did you know that the Wellington monument is Ireland's tallest?
It took from 1817 to 1861 to complete.
Behind and all around that long alley of magnificent chestnut trees, the place abounds in animal and bird life. The deer. A herd has been there since 1662.
At one time it numbered about 1,300; during 1939 - 1945 that came down to 40. Today the number is kept around the 450 mark. Foxes tend to be found around Aras an Uachtarain and the American Ambassador's Residence and other enclosed areas. Safer than out in the open. There are badger sets, too. Squirrels both red and grey have lived there but the book, published in 1993 says that the last recorded sighting of a red was on St Patricks Day 1987.
But "the precise relationship between these two species has yet to be established."
Plenty of rabbits, but no hares, says the book. You get the stoat. Otters come as visitors. Mink have been seen. Pygmy shrews, the most delicate of all small mammals "are widespread throughout the Park."
Then the birds are listed. The trees, too, and you are shown how to measure the height of a tree with just a 45 degree set square. Many ceremonial trees are planted by visiting dignitaries.
In another booklet Wild Plants of the Phoenix Park, the fate of one is given in verse. On leaving the Viceregal Lodge, as it was, in 1855, each family member planted a tree, but Lady St German died soon after and so did her tree, a pine. Lord Carlisle erected a small stone memorial. The first verse mourned the death of tree and lady:
Then:
But mark what diff'ring terms your fates allow,
Though like the period of your swift decay,
Thine are the sapless root and wither'd bough,
Hers the greem memory and immortal day.