In article ,
"Hal Ó Mearadhaigh." wrote:

Billy wrote:
In article ,
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.

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."

"He exploited the natural resources of Irish forestry to fund his
expedition and targeted religious dissidents for settlement in
English outposts."

Britain had more than enough
forests of her own to build all the ships she wished!!

Maybe so / maybe not but the ruling class of Britain still cut down
the trees of Ireland.

As far as I'm aware Britain got most of it's marine supplies from
the Baltic countries

What? There were substantial Oak forests in Latvia?

For the ships that fought the Spanish Armada?

Wouldn't it have been easier and cheaper to have felled the trees in
nearby Ireland?

- that trade certainly is mentioned quite frequently in
various history books.

Which ones precisely?

Nik

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure
Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service
in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups ----= East and West-Coast Server
Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----
Shame on you Hal. jl gave you a retort with citations to prove his
point. Until you do likewise, we can only assume that you are blowing
hot air.

EERMM! I may be wrong, but I believe that jl was responding to Nik in fact.
I will Google for you if you want, but that too is a snare and a delusion in
that in the end one is only forwarding on other peoples opinions as facts
when they are not.

I guess the beer got in the way of my eye tooth. Apologies all around.
Still, even if we can boil it down to battling authorities (I'm usually
keen on Ph.Ds, and those who can direct you to source material), that
should clear up some points.
--

Billy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVTf...ef=patrick.net
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0aEo...eature=related