io6 



IRISH GARDENING 



of forest fastnesses. Had u different plan been 

 adopted, tlie woods, as Davies points out. \vo\ild 

 liave l)(>oii wasted ))y Kiiglish lial)itations, as 

 liai)peiuHl just Ix'fore liis own time in tlic terri- 

 tories of heix and Offaly, round the ne\v-nia(l(> forts 

 of Maryborougli and riiillipstown. 



No attenii)t\vas made, however, for above three 

 centuries after the arrival of the Englisli in Ireland 

 to encroach to any serious extent upon tlie native 

 reserves of the Irish inliabitants, thougli a statute 

 of Edward I., ]);issed in 12i)6, contained a clause 

 which was designed to ])rovide liighways through 

 the country. The clause was as follows :•— 



" . . . the King's higliways are in ])laces so 

 overgrown witli woods, and so thick and difficult, 

 that even a foot passenger can hardly pass. TT])on 

 which it is ordained that every lord of a wood, witii 

 his tenants, throiigh which the highway was 

 anciently, shall clear a ])assage where the way 

 ought to l)e, and remove all standing timber, as 

 well as miderwood." (7) 



But the wars of the Bruces which followed within 

 a few years of this enactment, and the subsequent 

 (lecadence of English power, prevented the taking 

 of any effective steps mider this statute. 



Down to the middle of the sixteenth century it 

 may fairly be said, no substantial alteration took 

 place in the face of Ireland in this regard. Well 

 on into the reign of Henry VIII., the period, in- 

 deed, in which the English Pale had shnmk to its 

 narrowest limits, the districts in which English 

 law remained supreme were everywhere hedged 

 round by impassal)le forests. Baron Finglas, writ- 

 ing about 15;29. describes a remedy very sihiilar to 

 that enforced by Etlward I. more than a century 

 eni'liei' : — 



■' Item. — That the Deputy be eight days in every 

 summer tnitting passes in the woods next adjoining 

 to the King's subjects, which shall l)e thought most 

 needful " — and he enumerates above thirty passes, 

 most of them adjacent to the Pale, which required 

 to t)e made or maintained. (8) The nmnerous writers 

 to whom we owe our knowledge of Elizabethan 

 Ireland, and of the age innnediately succeeding, 

 concur in representing the great forests as having 

 survived in most places to the middle of the six- 

 teenth and. in many, till well into the seventeenth 

 century. Sir Henry Piers, in his " History of 

 Westmeath," (9) speaks of that county as deficient 

 in nothing, " except only timber of bulk, with 

 which it was anciently well stored." Yet, barely a 

 century before this was written, Westmeath was 

 one of the most secure fortresses of the King's 

 Irish enemies, as the native septs were called, and 

 it was for this reason that the county was severed 

 from Meatli, to which it had anciently belonged, 

 by the statute 34 Henry VIII., cap. 1. During the 

 wars of Elizabeth it was still a proverb that " the 

 Irish will never be tamed while the leaves are on 

 the trees," meaning that the winter was the only 

 time in which the woods could be entered by an 

 army with any hope of success; and the system of 

 " plashing," l)y which the forest paths were 

 rendered impassable through the interlacing of the 

 boughs of the great trees with the abundant under- 

 wood, was the obstacle accounted by most of Eliza- 

 beth's soldiers the most dangerous with which they 

 were confronted. Derrick, in his " Inuige of 

 Ireland," (1(J) written in 1581, says that in his day 

 the forests still coreied eiujniioiis (ireas. lie speal-s 

 of tJwm- as often twenty miles long. 



The adoption of a resolute policy in Ireland l)y 

 the Tudor Sovereigns was the first step towards 

 the reduction of these immense woodland areas. 

 The gradual extension through the country of the 



m(>asures first api)lied lo Westmeath led, under the 

 reign of Mary and Elizal)(>th, to a ra])id clearance 

 of hirge tracts of the country. Fynes Moryson, in 

 the closing years of Elizabeth, found the central 

 l)hiin of Ireland nearly destitute of trees. The 

 Tale had, of course, for centuries l)een deuudcnl of 

 woods, if it ever possessed them on a large scale, 

 and as early as 15.'i4 an ordinani-e of Henry VIII. 

 luid directed every husbandman to i)lant 12 ashes 

 within the ditches and closes of his farm. With 

 th.e disai)pearance, in tlu' jjerson of Tyrone, of the 

 last Irish Chieftain powerful enough to hold inde- 

 pendent sway in the island, this clearance was ex- 

 tended towards ITIster. The civil war which fol- 

 lowed the rel)ellion of 1641 doul»tless tended largely 

 in the same direction, and, by the time of the 

 Commonwealth, Boate noted in his " Natural 

 History of Ireland " that " in some parts you might 

 travel whole days without seeing any trees save a 

 a few al)Out gentlemen's houses." This was especi- 

 ally so on the northern road, where, for a distance 

 of fit) miles from the capital, not a wood worth 

 sjjeaking of was to l)e,seen. " For," he adds, " the 

 great woods which the maps do represent to us 

 ui)on the mountains between Dundalk and Newry 

 are quite vanished, there being nothing left of 

 them these many years since, but only one tree 

 standing close by the highway, at the very top of 

 one of the mountains, so as it may be seen a great 

 way off, and, therefore, serveth travellers for a 

 mark." (11) 



The destruction of the woods, due in the first 

 place to deliberate policy, and in the next to the 

 accidents of war, was accelerated both during the 

 long ])eace that preceded the rel)ellion, and after- 

 wards in the years following the Restoration, by the 

 progress of the arts of peace. The revival of Irish 

 industries was nearly as fashionable a shibboleth 

 in the middle of the sixteenth century as it has 

 been at intervals in later ages. In those days the 

 favourite objects of solicitude were the manufai'- 

 ture of pipe-staves and the development of iron- 

 works, wliich were then supposed to be the true 

 El Dorado of Irish enterprise. Both industries de- 

 pended for their success on the woods, which were 

 accordingly drawn upon regardless of the conse- 

 quences. From Minister whole loads of ])ipe-staves 

 were exported, to the great profit of the jjrojjrietors 

 and great destruction of the woods. Richard Boyle, 

 the well-known Earl of Cork, was reputed to have 

 made £100.000 by his iron works, and the sale of 

 timber must have brought liim nearly as nnich 

 again. 



(7'o ])e (-oiitiinied .) 



(1) " Commercial Forestry." E. P. Stebbing. 

 I'Jl!). 



(la) " The Forestry Question considered Histori- 

 cally." C. Litton Falkiner. Esq.. B.L. 1903. 



(2) " Meredith Hanmer's Chronicle," in Ancient 

 Irish Histories, ii. P. 194. 



(3) " Meredith Hanmer's Chromcle." ii. P. 370. 



(4) " Toi)ograi)hica Hibernic-a." Celtic Society s 

 Edition, ii. P. 110. . ^ ^^^ 



(5) " Joyce's Irish Names of Places, i. Pp. 491- 

 522. 



{()) Vol. i. P. 337. 



(7) " Betham's Feudal and Parliamentary Dig- 

 nities." P. 269. 



(8) " Harris's Hibernica." P. 51. 



(9) Printed by Vallencey in 1774. 



(10) Small's Edition. 188;'.. P. 28. 



(11) Boate. Chap. XV. 



