Someone else wrote:
On Sun, 11 May 2008 05:41:49 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

Someone else wrote:
On Sat, 10 May 2008 11:40:29 -0700, Billy
wrote:

In article ,
Hal Ó Mearadhaigh. wrote:

Hal Ó Mearadhaigh. wrote:
Someone else wrote:
On Fri, 09 May 2008 22:35:45 +0000 (GMT), jl

wrote:
In article ,
Hal Ó 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

At that reference it says:

"Those who traveled across Ireland at this time reported that one
could ride all day and not see a single tree, an image that
contrasts
sharply with the carpet of trees that covered the area only
centuries
before (Brown, Terry)."

Brown, Terry. "Wood in Development of Civilization."
[http://www.cof.orst.edu/cof/teach/fo...velopment.pdf]

Which supports my allegation that Ireland was rapidly deforested
during the time that Britain invaded and occupied.

Game, set and match Mr Merrick.

I made that same comment

No you didn't.

and you told me to "reread what I had posted". Are you by any
chance a loon?

You're the one claiming to have made certain specific comments when
you did not...nowhere did you say, "Game, set and match Mr Merrick"
or
even, more charitably, "Game, set and match"

rimshot

plonk

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Someone else wrote:
On Sun, 11 May 2008 05:39:33 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

Someone else wrote:
On Sat, 10 May 2008 10:55:43 -0700, Billy
wrote:

In article ,
Hal Ó Mearadhaigh. wrote:

Hal Ó Mearadhaigh. wrote:
Someone else wrote:
On Fri, 09 May 2008 22:35:45 +0000 (GMT), jl

wrote:
In article ,
Hal Ó 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.

The crime of taking property using force is, in law, called
'aggravated robbery'. Furthermore, the passing of time makes that
property no less stolen.

So you're saying that the Normans should give England back to the
Anglo Saxons?

cough

Practical difficulties there...rather obvious ones.

Tell me though, are there still Norman Soldiers present on English
soil?

Of course there are. They're called the "British Army".

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

In article
,
Salahoona wrote:
On May 12, 11:00 am, jl wrote:
In article
,
Salahoona wrote:



No fridges in those days. Anyway, I lived in such a culture and
cannot remember eating 'meat' - lots of milk and butter though - salt
port was the big treat. I cannot agree your presumption that only the
rich and powerful could afford cattle; perhaps a political pre-
conception on your part. Every family had a cow.

Agreed - generally for milk and butter. As there usually was no fodder
available for winter, most cattle were slaughtered and the meat was
salted.

I hesitate to agree with that. Cattle were also central heating and a
lot cheaper than going to the bog for wet turf in the winter Cow in
the house is no stranger to me.

I agree that it would be feasible to keep one or two cows over the winter,
but they would be no use for meat, just for dairy product. It was
presumably much more important to keep hay for horse or donkey. Large
herds of beef cattle only became available in Europe during the late 18th
century. After the land enclosure animals could also be bred larger.
Modern animals weight about two to three times more than they used to.

After a while it had a terrible taste and spices were used to
disguise this

I'm a bigot, but for most people, except the Christian Ascendency,
didn't use spice. .

Apparently the taste was awful and there is a well established economic
link between spice sales and cattle wintering in Europe.

- hence the spice trade and the outrageous sums charged for spices,
which generally only the better off could afford. Only with the
introduction of root vegetables - turnips and the like - was it
possibly to winter cattle - which put an end to the high profit
margins of the spice trade.

Well, some of us survived the famine.


Famines were very common then as now. You could have starvation in one
part of the same country and food in plenty in the other. Transport links,
organisation and education were the main problems in the famines of old.

Jochen

--

------------------------------------
Limavady and the Roe Valley
http://www.jochenlueg.freeuk.com

On Mon, 12 May 2008 07:24:31 +0000 (GMT), jl wrote:

In article ,
Someone else wrote:
On Sun, 11 May 2008 05:39:33 -0400, "J. Clarke"

Tell me though, are there still Norman Soldiers present on English
soil?

I have personally met at least two soldiers on English soil called Norman.

cackle

Nik

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On Mon, 12 May 2008 10:29:22 +1000, "FarmI" ask@itshall be given
wrote:

"Someone else" wrote in message On Sun,
11 May 2008 16:23:31 +1000, "FarmI" ask@itshall be given
wrote:
"Someone else" wrote in message
On Sun, "FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:
"Someone else" wrote in message
On Sat, 10 May 2008 13:12:01 +0000 (GMT), jl


I wouldn't get to hung up about the Spanish Armada - the
british fleet was quite small in those days, as were the ships.

I'm not "hung up" about it. I refer in particular to that time period
because that is when the Irish forests had a huge amount of damage
done to them and I am responding to questions about the deforestation
of Ireland...

You answer questions not asked and make
repsonses to what you think you read in other's posts that were never
there in the first place.

In the instance of the 'question' of the deforestation of Ireland, you
are
answering a question that were NEVER asked.

Which question, in particular, and explicitly stated, is that?

viz: "I am responding to questions about the deforestation of Ireland..."

You wrote that. No question about the deforestation of Ireland has been
asked in this thread. You may choose to dribble on about it but it was
not
asked.

Ah well...you're just going to have to cope then aren't you?

And here was I thinking you were actually serious about having an interest
in Ireland and Irish history

You'd be right there.

and just had problems presenting information in
a sensible and ordered fashion.

Like I've said before, my supervising lecturers disagree...and basing
an opinion like that on usenet postings is unreliable at best.

Nik

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On Mon, 12 May 2008 07:00:49 +0100, "allan connochie"
wrote:


"Féachadóir" Féach@d.óir wrote in message
.. .
ScrÃ*obh "allan connochie" :

"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?

Irish agriculture was much more pastoral than arable, which may have
meant we held on to forest for longer.

That may be so but then again the more pastoral regions of Britain were just
as treeeless as anywhere else. My own area in the Southern Uplands of
Scotland for example! It may be as I said a matter of degree and you may
indeed be right in that 11thC or 16thC Ireland may have had a larger
fraction of its original forest intact, but what I was saying was that
surely this was only a fraction of what had been? Iron Age and first
millenium Ireland couldn't have been so much different from Britain - could
it? I know it is only one poster sayig it but the idea that a huge primeval
forest covered Ireland until Elizabeth of England cut it down to build a few
ships to ward off the Armada sounds a bit off.

The building of the Spanish Armada itself deforested Spain and Spain
is significantly larger than Ireland and Britain added together.

Culchie Aspirant

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On Sun, 11 May 2008 16:23:31 +1000, "FarmI" ask@itshall be given
wrote:

"Someone else" wrote in message
On Sun, "FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:
"Someone else" wrote in message
On Sat, 10 May 2008 13:12:01 +0000 (GMT), jl


I wouldn't get to hung up about the Spanish Armada - the
british fleet was quite small in those days, as were the ships.

I'm not "hung up" about it. I refer in particular to that time period
because that is when the Irish forests had a huge amount of damage
done to them and I am responding to questions about the deforestation
of Ireland...

You really do have a problem.

In your opinion.

Yes, but I note that I'm not the only one with that opinion.

You answer questions not asked and make
repsonses to what you think you read in other's posts that were never
there
in the first place.

In the instance of the 'question' of the deforestation of Ireland, you are
answering a question that were NEVER asked.

Which question, in particular, and explicitly stated, is that?

viz: "I am responding to questions about the deforestation of Ireland..."

You wrote that. No question about the deforestation of Ireland has been
asked in this thread. You may choose to dribble on about it but it was not
asked.

There has been NO such question
except presumably in your own mind! You have decided to take a contrary
view to what other people have chosen to post, but your contrariness does
not mean that any question has ever been asked nor does it mean that your
posts are relevant to the OPs interest.

Is there some law that specifies that in usenet I must repeatedly
refer to the original poster's point?

Only the sort of 'law' any competent undergraduates should know. It works
like this: "TV documentaries and travelogues reveal a lot of lush "green" in
those (meaning Ireland and Britain) countrysides but a relative scarcity of
trees. Is it climate? Too windy in Ireland? Sheep and/or other livestock?
Discuss"

Read the statement, understand what the statement is about, do research on
the topic, decide which information is pertinent, write a response and
provide evidence to support your stance.

You would rate a fail because you didn't understand the statement and went
on to discuss something unrelated.

That conclusion is not logically valid. You are assuming that the
respondent you are replying to read the very first post in the thread
to begin with.

Culchie

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On May 10, 1:26 pm, Féachadóir Féach@d.óir wrote:
Scríobh mothed out :



On May 10, 10:25 am, "Westprog" wrote:
jl wrote:

...

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. Britain had more
than enough forests of her own to build all the ships she wished!!
As far as I'm aware Britain got most of it's marine supplies from the
Baltic countries - that trade certainly is mentioned quite frequently
in various history books.

I wonder if anyone wrote a poem or song about Irish trees being cut down.

"Culchie Aspirant" wrote in message
...
[...]
The building of the Spanish Armada itself deforested Spain and Spain
is significantly larger than Ireland and Britain added together.

God almighty. Just when I thought things couldn't get sillier, we have a
debate in which a 'scientist' actually claims to explain deforestation by
blaming hundreds of years of ecological damage on the building a couple of
hundred ships.

We're all doomed, I tell you.

--
Falcon:
fide, sed cui vide. (L)

In article , Falcon
wrote:


"Culchie Aspirant" wrote in message
... [...]
The building of the Spanish Armada itself deforested Spain and Spain
is significantly larger than Ireland and Britain added together.

God almighty. Just when I thought things couldn't get sillier, we have a
debate in which a 'scientist' actually claims to explain deforestation
by blaming hundreds of years of ecological damage on the building a
couple of hundred ships.

We're all doomed, I tell you.

That is bound to be the death of Irish forests. Think of all them coffins
........

Jochen

--

------------------------------------
Limavady and the Roe Valley
http://www.jochenlueg.freeuk.com

"Culchie Aspirant" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 12 May 2008 07:00:49 +0100, "allan connochie"
wrote:


"Féachadóir" Féach@d.óir wrote in message
. ..
..

That may be so but then again the more pastoral regions of Britain were
just
as treeeless as anywhere else. My own area in the Southern Uplands of
Scotland for example! It may be as I said a matter of degree and you may
indeed be right in that 11thC or 16thC Ireland may have had a larger
fraction of its original forest intact, but what I was saying was that
surely this was only a fraction of what had been? Iron Age and first
millenium Ireland couldn't have been so much different from Britain -
could
it? I know it is only one poster sayig it but the idea that a huge
primeval
forest covered Ireland until Elizabeth of England cut it down to build a
few
ships to ward off the Armada sounds a bit off.

The building of the Spanish Armada itself deforested Spain and Spain
is significantly larger than Ireland and Britain added together.

That would be a great point if it were true.........but it isn't!

Allan

On May 12, 7:06 pm, "Falcon" wrote:
"Culchie Aspirant" wrote in message

...
[...]

The building of the Spanish Armada itself deforested Spain and Spain
is significantly larger than Ireland and Britain added together.

God almighty. Just when I thought things couldn't get sillier, we have a
debate in which a 'scientist' actually claims to explain deforestation by
blaming hundreds of years of ecological damage on the building a couple of
hundred ships.


People love quite simplified myth-like stories, and if they can be
connected to a famous historical event all the better, because they
provide an easily shared reference point. You can almost hear all the
tellings and re-tellings in that one, that someone said to someone, or
that they remember from childhood, and so on.


We're all doomed, I tell you.

--
Falcon:
fide, sed cui vide. (L)

On Thu, 08 May 2008 18:21:09 +1200, Someone else
wrote:

Ireland was covered in trees before the English needed timber to built
the fleet that fought the Spanish Armada.

All else being equal, if they cut down every large tree in Ireland for
the task (and I doubt they'd need so many), one presumes the smaller
trees would have grown to replace them within fifty years, so
something more of an explanation would seem called for.

For example farming and firewood, especially as the population grew
into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

J.

On May 9, 8:41*pm, Billy wrote:
In article
,


[SNIPSI]


sigh

You need to get out more Billy, you're not Irish I take it?


Si

"Bog snorkler extraordinaire"

On May 11, 10:55*am, Des Higgins wrote:
On May 11, 1:14*am, Taig & Charlie wrote:





Des Higgins wrote:
On May 9, 5:15 pm, Si wrote:
On 8 May, 13:49, Des Higgins wrote:

On May 8, 11:15 am, mothed out wrote:
On May 7, 11:53 pm, (Way Back Jack) wrote:
TV documentaries and travelogues reveal a lot of lush "green" in those
countrysides but a relative scarcity of trees. *Is it climate? *Too
windy in Ireland? *Sheep and/or other livestock?
One factor is this:
The EU has been paying farmers to cut down trees for a long time.
I think it is now paying people to plant them again.
Tree coverage in Ireland was at its lowest point a century ago. *The
EU has nothing to do with it. *In fact, Irish tree coverage has been
slowly growing since the 70s. *The trees disappeared for farming, fuel
and for building (including ships), centuries ago.
T'was the towel heads(pasted from an old SCI thread):

"Message from Q'il Q'as (Al Jazzbeera)

Q'adda yen Hamid fastha q'on Aymid?
Tha Tehran A'Q'ilta er Al'Awer.
Ni Al Traw'q ter Q'il Q'as nawat' Ayla'q,
Shni Q'lingfer A'Qling Ibn' Braw "

well spotted that man!!
It makes a change from blaming the Brits (apart from Gavin Bailey who
himself almost certainly chopped down several large native trees).

Des

I didn't see him do it, though it is very likely, I would imagine he
lingered at it, you know the way those crazy pepole in Oregon tie you to
a tree before they do something that has the FBI web-site falling over?
Well I reckon it was like that, a difficult to understand type of thing.

I did not see him do it either; I am just assuming he must have; *it
would be exactly the kind of oppressive thing he would have done.
Before the troubles, only 13.4% of NI trees were native.



T & C- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

It was the unwanted introduction of Pinus sylvestris in the 17th
century in NI that was responsible for all the woes up there.


Si

"Bog snorkler extraordinaire"