"jl" wrote in message ...
In article ,
Hal Ó Mearadhaigh. wrote:
Someone else wrote:
On Thu, 8 May 2008 16:57:04 +1000, "FarmI" ask@itshall be given
wrote:

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.

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.

Plus I'd imagine that Ireland must be the same as Britain in that whatever
deforestation took place in the second half of the second millenium was
deforestation of what little remained of the woodland cover. Most of
Britain's had already gone by 1500AD because of pastoral agriculture; the
need for resources; and even possibly natural climatic effects within the
last 5000 years or so. This website claims (I imagine it can only be
guesswork) that the original forests had been halved by 500BC and was down
to around just 15% by the 1080s. Perhaps degree may have been different but
surely Iron Age and first millenium Ireland couldn't have been that
different from Britain at that time?

http://www.stewardwood.org/woodland/tree_loss.htm

Allan