Last year, the name of a powerful extratropical cyclone was the most searched term on Google in Ireland. The record-breaking Storm Éowyn ravaged the country in the third week of January, ripping off the roofs of houses and destroying hundreds of thousands of trees.
One of the main questions in search engines was how to pronounce Éowyn. Broadcasters stumbled as they struggled to get their tongue around the name. Variations included Air-wyn or Eow-win, while the correct cadence glides in three beats: ay-OH-win. The name comes from a fictional character in JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, combining the old English word eoh, meaning horse, and wyn, meaning joy.
Whatever way you pronounce it, Ireland’s most ferocious storm in living memory certainly brought no joy causing damage calculated by insurers at more than €300 million.
Aside from the loss of trees, tens of thousands of homes and businesses were left without power. One year on, many of the worst-affected areas are still coming to terms with the scale of their impact.
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At the 161-hectare Montalto estate near Ballynahinch in Co Down, the woodlands were devastated with the loss of more than 1,500 trees as the storm barrelled its way across the country. Veteran oaks, in some cases 200 years old, and 150-year-old beech trees, were among the casualties in a trail of destruction.
Dating from the 1760s, Montalto is a historic estate set among the rolling drumlins landscape. It is privately owned by the Wilson family and was radically reimagined, opening to the public in 2018.
Carefully curated trails and themed and manicured gardens were established, catering for all horticultural tastes, while a 100-year-old lost garden was restored.
Storm Éowyn led to the closure of several of those walking trails and gardens, with some areas partially reopening in March. However, the Woodland Trail – noted for historic trees with native and naturalised birch, beech, Douglas fir and sycamores – as well as the History Trail at Ednavady hill, have remained closed for the entire year.
Ednavady was the site of the Battle of Ballynahinch, part of the 1798 Rebellion by the United Irishmen and in a curious analogy, has become a different type of 21st century silent battlefield of wounded trees.
During the immediate post-storm clear-up in late January, February and March fallen trees were removed. But it was a complex and unprecedented situation.
The protracted recovery work involved using heavy machinery in areas with difficult access. Heavy brash was taken away from the woodland floor and from paths strewn with wreckage, while those trees that had stood firm were surveyed for signs of weakness.
Like many parts of the country, foresters worked overtime with chainsaws. Tree-cutting is an inherently dangerous job, especially when dealing with thick trunks of storm-damaged trees.
If one storm gets a break into the forest, this will cause damage which leads the way for the next storm to wreak more havoc
An assessment was made of immediate threats to safety, damage to fencing and historic structures as well as preparations to reopen parts of the grounds.
For the gardeners and maintenance team, the struggle with nature meant months of back-breaking work to ensure areas were secure.
The forests in Montalto are not uniform blankets of woodland but reflect a diversity of mixed ages of mature and younger trees. Four champion trees survived: liquidambar, giant redwood, sycamore, and an Austrian pine which is the Irish champion girth for its species.
Old beech trees are susceptible to storms and are known for suddenly dropping hefty branches. This can be triggered by bacterial wetwood or a surplus of moisture that weakens the tree’s structure.
A former ranger at Montalto, Wilson Johnston, says one of the main dangers comes from branches left hanging limply after a storm and which fall without warning.
“These large broken or dead branches, which are known as widow makers, can be leaning over and you can’t predict where and when they will fall,” he says.
“They pose a severe risk and are highly dangerous for anyone who happens to be walking directly below them so this is something that foresters are aware of when clearing up.”
In a woodland everything is connected and storms can impact on biodiversity since creatures thrive on trees for survival. The fall of an ancient tree is a loss to the complex whirl of life that lived and relied on it.
They are feed stations hosting a secret threadlike network of fungal mycelium in which scores of species benefit. All animals rely on plants, directly or indirectly. Trees are a hospitable host, not only to birds but to generations of centipedes and millipedes, ants, bees, moths, butterflies and worms.
The savagery of the destruction by Éowyn caused serious concern, but another winter storm often tears down what has just been repaired, leading to a dispiriting sense of deja vu.
On December 9th last year, Storm Bram swept through Montalto. Beech trees were felled in the Low Wood, while coniferous trees were damaged near Mutton Hill.
In the past, generational storms referred to a powerful weather event that might only happen once in a lifetime or over a few generations. But climate change means that autumn and winter are producing a cycle of storms arriving with different air masses and have become the new normal.
Johnston believes that each storm produces a knock-on effect.
“The problem is that generational storms are now happening with increasing regularity, perhaps three or four times a year,” he says.
“If one storm gets a break into the forest, this will cause damage which leads the way for the next storm to wreak more havoc.”
Montalto head gardener Lesley Heron acknowledges that the process of recovery has taken a long time, but they are continuing to strive to reopen all the affected areas.
“We are working our way through the substantial damage and hope to see more areas within the estate cleared by early spring,” she says.
“As the damage was so prolific in the areas that are next to be worked upon, it will be a long process, but one which we are focused on for the new year ahead.”
The severity of a storm shakes birdlife, leading to a destruction of habitat but also an energy depletion causing disruption to food sources. Montalto is renowned for its birdlife, whether it is the flash of a dipper or a kingfisher on the Ballynahinch river running through the northeast of the estate.
A fresh birdwatching dimension was added in 2018 when an unusual visitor, a great spotted woodpecker, set up its nest. The birds had recolonised Ireland in the early 2000s, and in the past eight years, they have continued to thrive, setting up their habitat in Montalto’s tree holes.
Johnston says the woodpeckers are in a half-dozen locations around the estate.
“They like soft barks and are particularly fond of stripping the bark of Spanish chestnut trees, which is good for them. They also nest in old pine trees, which are full of insects for abundant food and which provide soft wood for nesting cavities.”
Finches, tits, treecreepers, wrens, goldcrests and many other birds populate the different plantations and Johnston senses there is an enigmatic side to their survival.
“For the smaller birds, it is an unknown quantity and hard to pinpoint exactly how they manage to cope during storms. However, it would, for example, be extremely unlikely to lose a family of long-tailed tits who stick together as they move around. Obviously, there will be some disturbance for small birds but they are resilient and able to recover.”
The new animal kingdom in the estate includes pine marten and red squirrels, but the distinctive and evocative drumming of the woodpecker stands out.
In this part of mid-Co Down, nature has survived the relentless pressure of winter’s stormy grip, always with the hope of sliding towards the longer and brighter days of spring.
Paul Clements is the author of A Year in the Woods: Montalto through the Seasons
