IRISH GARDENING 



VOLUME VIII. 

 No. 94 



Edited by C F. Ball. 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE 



ADVANCEMENT OF HORTICULTURE AND 



ARBORICULTURE IN IRELAND 



DECEMBER 



The Island of Woods 



By A. E. Moeran, Hamilton Lodge, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. 



Of course every Irish born child should be 

 taught something of Irish history, but the 

 history I would chiefly have them dwell on 

 would go away back behind those centuries of 

 oppression, and rebellion, and treachery, and 

 bloodshed that make such sad reading, back to 

 the days of the Fianna and the Knights of the 

 Red Branch, when the name of Ireland stood 

 first in Europe as the home of chivalry, and of 

 gallant deeds bravely done. And my history 

 would teach us to know personally, as it were, 

 those big upstanding, fearless-eyed men-men 

 that scorned a lie as bitter dishonour, and that 

 went straight onward by the strength of their 

 hands ; men that " fought, and sailed, and 

 ruled, and loved, and made " our island, and 

 very proud ought Ave to be to have such men 

 behind us In our heritage. } 



With the story of her heroes the story of 

 Ireland's great woods is inseparably connected. 

 In them the fierce wild boar and the mighty 

 Irish elk abounded, and provided sport worthy 

 of their strength and valour. The great order 

 of knighthood known as the Fianna were 

 especially devoted to hunting, and to them 

 belonged the famous Irish deer hounds so 

 jealously and exclusively guarded for long, but 

 now, alas ! extinct. 



And with the love of sport the love of the 

 woods themselves grew in the hearts of these 

 men of olden times ; until in time the humbler 

 people came to look upon the Fianna and their 

 giant dogs as being the guardian spirits of the 

 forests, and songs were made and sung praising 

 the beauty and grandeur of these, and the name 

 Innis na Fidba — the island of woods — became 

 one of the names by which Ireland was known. 



But long before that time, when the stout- 

 hearted sons of King Milesius launched their 

 galleys more than two thousand years ago from 

 the shores of northern Spain, it was the report 

 of this wonderful island of great woods and 

 green pasture that had been seen by their 



miraculously keen-eyed watchman far across 

 the unfurrowed northern waters, that spurred 

 them on. 



Fair the island was, he said, beyond all lands 

 yet seen by that roving race, and rich fields 

 sloped up to the noblest forests ever seen by 

 mortal man ; and so, reckless adventurers all, 

 they clawed out for sea room for those clumsy 

 old tubs of theirs, and bore away north, wallow- 

 ing through the trough of it, towards the low 

 green hills and spreading woods of the Isle of 

 Destiny. 



And long and long before that time, when 

 Ulysses in his fabled wanderings was cast, the 

 sole survivor of his crew, on the shores of Eire, 

 her queen, with a hospitality that made 

 " Ogygia," as they called it, famous in Greek 

 legend, entertained him royally for seven years, 

 and on his deciding to build a ship in which to 

 take his somewhat belated departure, gave him 

 an axe and led him " to where grew pine trees, 

 rising high as heaven, long and sapless, and 

 that would lightly float upon the hollow 

 waves." 



Of course to meet the needs of a growing 

 population all through our early history the 

 green grass lands were being widened back to the 

 hill sides, and to destroy the refuge of wild 

 beasts and wilder man the pine woods were 

 fired again and again. Increased security from 

 these marauders permitted the grazing of cattle 

 and goats, which in their turn ate down the 

 seedling trees that might otherwise have per- 

 petuated this great inheritance. Then, too, 

 timber began to be of commercial value, and 

 especially that of the great lowland woods, 

 composed as they were of magnificent oak, and 

 so the end came by degrees. 



In many places the cleared land was brought 

 under cultivation, and justified the sacrifice, 

 but in others the slow black bog came relent- 

 lessly creeping, swallowing up the fallen trunk 

 and buttressed root, and storing them for our 



