Dubliners may be familiar with a remarkable tree in the grounds of The King's Inns on Constitution Hill. At 60 or 70 years of age, it's not especially old, nor is it tremendously big, or even particularly beautiful. What makes this London plane stand out from its brethren is that for some years it has been leisurely consuming a cast-iron bench at its base.
The modest two-seater, placed there decades ago to cradle weary legal posteriors, is now firmly embedded in the tree's wrinkled, encrusted fabric, which pours heavily over the back rail like a sumo wrestler's belly.
The progress of this bench-eating tree is being noted by Mark Twomey, project director of the Tree Register of Ireland (TROI), and its vital statistics have been added to the register's database of remarkable trees. The register - launched last year and funded by the Forest Service and the EU - aims to be a definitive and comprehensive list of all the noteworthy trees in Ireland.
TROI has records of "champion trees" (biggest, tallest, oldest) dating back to the 18th century, made by Samuel Hayes, the original owner of Avondale estate in Co Wicklow. The work which Hayes began was carried on by a number of tree enthusiasts over the years, including Henry Elwes and Augustine Henry at the beginning of the 20th century, and most recently by the late Alan Mitchell who founded the Tree Register of Britain and Ireland (TROBI) during the 1990s.
Mitchell's list includes 5,000 Irish trees, all of which are being checked again by TROI to see how they have fared in the intervening years: whether they have grown, have been damaged - or, indeed, whether they are still standing. Extreme weather and age are just two possible causes of death. With a mere 350 tree protection orders (TPOs) in place in this country, the human hand may be a factor in the demise of some of our leafy giants. "Some of the oldest and biggest trees that I have come across don't have TPOs," says Mark Twomey. Most protected trees are in cities, he adds.
Existing champions include a massive cedar of Lebanon at Adare Manor in Co Limerick. Planted around 1640, and now with a portly girth of 9.9 metres, it was the first of its species in the British Isles. Among the tallest known Irish trees, meanwhile, are a 52.6-metre Sitka spruce in Curraghmore estate in Co Waterford and a 57.6-metre western hemlock at Castlewellan in Co Down. "But I expect that we will be finding trees taller than these," Twomey remarks.
Many champion trees are, as one might expect, in old estates, but others are "in the middle of arable fields or in gardens: places where people would never think of looking for them". For instance, just recently, TROI volunteer Aubrey Fennell discovered what may be the oldest oak in the country (estimated at 800 or 900 years of age), concealed in a field boundary in Co Laois. "It is extremely well-hidden, no-one knows about it," Twomey says.
Aubrey Fennell - who has a fiendish nose for rooting out remarkable trees - also unearthed the oldest recorded yew tree in Ireland. Measuring 6.78 metres in girth, the 1,000 to 1,200-year-old arboreal treasure grows happily in a Co Wexford front garden, where it is cherished by its owners (although in the case of such a historic tree, who owns whom is debatable). It is in excellent hands now, but there is, as yet, no TPO to safeguard this heroic tree's next few millennia (certain current thinking says that yews may live up to 7,000 years). And that's a pity when you consider that this living being has stood stalwartly from Viking days through to the information technology age.
As it happens, information technology is the key to the salvation of this ancient tree and others of its ilk. Each tree that is recorded by the TROI has its portrait taken by digital camera and its location pinpointed by global positioning system (GPS). The ensuing information can then be layered onto a geographical information system (a many-faceted electronic map) and taken into consideration when tree-felling, building or other actions are planned.
When completed, the TROI database will be available at the National Botanic Gardens, on CD-Rom and on the Internet, and a book by environmental consultant Dinah Browne (provisionally titled A Celebration of Irish Trees), will be published. At the end of the recording project, a "champion tree" for each county will be designated. Eventually, says Mark Twomey, people will be able to electronically access their local area on the register to see what noteworthy trees are in their vicinity, and be able to call up statistics and pictures: "No tree register in the world has yet developed to this level."
But for this plan to come to its magnificent fruition, all Ireland's remarkable trees must be tracked down. The TROI project needs volunteers to help take measurements and to locate potential tree candidates for the register. And trees of note aren't just big, broad, tall or old; they may also have historic or folklore traditions - such as a fairy bush at the end of a field near you?
Jane Powers is at jpowers@irish-times.ie
TROI, c/o The Tree Council of Ireland, Cabinteely House, The Park, Cabinteely, Dublin 18, 01-2849211. e-mail troi@treecouncil.ie