44 Vew- Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Very large branches cut off after being broken by 

 a storm more than forty years ago have now their 

 cut surface almost perfectly cicatrised. 



In Ireland the lopping off great boughs seems, 

 contrary to what is found in England, to cause 

 general decay of the tree, as is seen in the case 

 of the Great Yew of Glendalough, or Seven 

 Churches, County Wicklow. 



Writing in 1794, S. Hayes, of Avondale, says : — 

 ' There was within these fifty years a single yew- 

 tree, adjoining one of the Seven Churches in Glen- 

 dalough, from whose lofty trunk, about 16 feet 

 round, extended on every side a mass of close 

 branches, which shaded from the sun, and sheltered 

 from every inclemency of weather the picturesque 

 ruin it adorned, and all the churchyard. This I 

 have had from the indubitable authority of several 

 who still remember it. When in its full beauty 

 on a hot summer's day, at a time that numbers 

 were regaling themselves under its shade, a gentle- 

 man of the party, who pleaded the authority of an 

 agent to the See (but whose employer, I am per- 

 suaded, could not have ever viewed the scene), 

 had all its principal limbs and branches sawed off 

 close to the trunk, for the value of the timber. 

 From that time to the present, which may be 

 about forty years, the poor remains have been in 

 a constant state of decay ; it has scarcely put out 

 a branch, the bark has fallen off, and a large holly 



