Billy wrote:
In article ,
Hal Ã" Mearadhaigh. wrote:

Hal Ã" Mearadhaigh. wrote:
Someone else wrote:
On Fri, 09 May 2008 22:35:45 +0000 (GMT), jl
wrote:
In article ,
Hal Ã" Mearadhaigh. wrote:
Someone else wrote:
On Thu, 8 May 2008 16:57:04 +1000, "FarmI" ask@itshall be
given wrote:

For those who think that Ireland never had significant forest cover
please see:

www.lhi.org.uk/docs/History_Project_1.pdf

"The first wave of colonisation was by birch, aspen and sallow.
About 8 500 BC. pine and hazel spread northwards, replacing the
birch, which became uncommon. The pine colonisation was followed
by a wave of oak and alder. Lime and elm followed this, then
holly, ash, beech, hornbeam and maple."

Ireland's population grew to around 8 million. But that had
little to do with the state of the forests. Disease and over
harvesting of trees were the main causes of the deforestation.

Who was it that was responsible for that overharvesting?

NOT the British, who always had plenty of forests of their own, but
also imported any woods for ship building mostly from Scandinavia.


As Ireland had no coal, the needs of 8 million people for charcoal
and cooking woulkd certainly damage the forests. Peat was
available of course - but only after the forests had made room
for it.

No, it was always available...

Peat bogs? of course. But they were also forested.


If local attitudes to trees were the same then as now, it is
surprising that any trees survived at all.

"That tree will knock that wall down - cut it down".

I've heard that sentence so often, it makes me sick.


Manufacturing, farming, and the
monies being made out of harvesting the peat bogs were main
causes. (Alas Bord Na Mona, so much for greed). Blaming the
British, (English) is merely being paranoid and specious.

Not if it actually was the British that cut down the Irish forests
to build the fleet that fought the Spanish Armada.

Nonsense! : See
http://fubini.swarthmore.edu/~ENVS2/...restation.html



http://www.russellmcmurtrey.com/

"Ireland used to be covered with a lot of oak forest until the peak
British armada years where much of it was cut down for making
ships."

and, interestingly,

http://www.millersville.edu/~columbus/papers/nucci.html

"The Queen gave Ralegh a massive estate in Ireland. He later
plundered this Irish land for its forests in order to finance one
of his expeditions."

So? If the estates were his,

Oh so now you have gone and done it. You had to bring up the conquest
and all the troubles that entails. There was a considerable amount of
resistance to the idea of Irish property being requisitioned by the
English. You may have heard about it.

LOL! Indeed I have!! Why do you think I said that if not to get up the noses
of our fundamentalist republicans?
Humour is as humour does!


then he had every right to do as he pleased. In
any case, how many ships? Possibly two at most? Not a lot of Oak
involved in that.Why do you isist on being such a begrudger against
the English? After all, without England, Ireland would not have
progressed past the Iron age. Technology, smelting iron, using wood
for that? The largest industry in Wicklow for many a long year was
Forestry. Nothing to do with the English.

--
Hal Ó Mearadhaigh.