Woodlands.
Tomies Wood is perhaps the oldest in Ireland if not in Europe. It is mentioned even in the Fianna sagas and legend has it that Diarmuid and Grainne hid there when they were fleeing from the fury of Fionn.
Loch Leinn and district was a favourite hunting ground for Fionn and his warriors. It was from Loch Lein that Oisin set out on his trip to Tir na nÓg, passing perhaps along the valley of the Laune and Paroiste na Tuatha.
The finest native oak timber was and still is found in that forest. Lord Kenmare sold a great amount of it in 1890 to provide timber for the English navy. It is also the home of the red and sika deer and also is found there, a very rare animal called a “marten” which has a nail in it’s tail to help it climb trees.
At the eastern end, which was first cleared of trees lived some families Breen and Ferris. The area was called Cullina na dTorna. Those families were transferred, the Ferris Family to Gortnascarry and the Breens to Lahard where their descendants still live. The idea was to give more room and pasture to the Red Deer.
The Forestry Department has now taken it over and has planted many acres of spruce and larch. They have also made roads through it and there is no finer view to be got than at some of the lay – byes on these roads such as The Lakes of Killarney at their best.
Another fine forest of first – class larch was in Cullina Upper known as Bishop’s Wood because it was willed to the church by the last of the O’Mahony’s. the church sold it to Dan Coffey and Dan Breen. During World War II those men sold their shares to MacMahons of Limerick, timber merchants and I heard one of the MacMahon’s men remark that they had met there the best larch timber in the country.
Another Wood known as McGillycuddy’s Wood ran in a narrow strip of land along the River Caol from Kissane’s Shop southwards.
Also south of Kate Kearney’s Cottage were a few smaller woods that contained some larch trees, but perhaps more important still some rarer specimens – Arbutus, Yew, Mountain Ash and the friendly Holly. Those woods were adorned our countryside were ruthlessly torn down and in the Gap especially were wantonly burnt down. None of those woods have been fully replanted. We blamed the landlords and with great reason for our deprivations of the past, but at least one point in their favour, are they planted and preserved our woods and trees.
Of course in olden times the time that the quotation introducing this article refers to namely the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when our poets and writers witnessed the real denunciation of our country used those heart – rendering lines. They saw everywhere the “giant woods that like a magic cloud had sheltered The Gael in every century, cut down”.
Hence such lines as:
“Cad a dheanfaimid feasta gan adhmaid,
Tá deire ná gcoillte ar lár”.
What will we do from now on without timber,
The end of our woods is at hand.
“Anois tá an choill dá gearradh,
Triallfaimid thar caladh”.
We will go off over the sea
“Tir gan fothain gan geaga
Tir dá briseadh lé fuireann galla”
A land without shelter or boughs
A land being broken by foreign Lords
” D’fheoigh an fionúir caoin fionn pairteach
D’feoigh geag phailime ó Phearthais aluinn”
Withered is the fair affectionate vine beauteous
Withered the palm bought from paradise.
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“The undertakers, the land pirates, were selling the timber on the estates at sixpence a tree. They were rifling the ship they had boarded. Trees to the valued of £20,000 were cut down upon the singles estates of Sir Valentine Brown of Kerry”. Those are the words of Lecky, the historian.
Our developers today are not quite so bad but respect for some beautiful trees does not hold the place it should among those people. Many people have set shelter belts, around farms and houses but all that is only a drop in the ocean of the hundreds of acres of land in our parish alone fit for scarcely anything except the growing of trees, which in a short time would yield profit untold. The Forestry Department should increase its effort tenfold.
Mr. Howard S. Harrington of Dunloe Castle planted an extraordinary collection of trees from almost every country in the World, including the Japanese Worshipping tree, an orange tree.
He planted those between the years 1924 – 1930 and luckily when the Germans purchased the property they got the trees catalogued so that people can know what each tree is and which makes an added attraction to their fine hotel, Dunloe Castle.
There are many smaller woods especially near the “Big Houses”, such as Beaufort House, Dunloe Castle, Magill’s, The Reeks, Ardlahas, Bearna Dhearg and Cullina House.
A curious fact about those woods is that in three of these are rockeries nesting places for rooks or as call them crows.
In the winter all the rooks gather into Beaufort rookery. But when nesting time in Spring begins some move out to Magills and to the Reeks. But what appears to be a most peculiar phenomenon, no rooks ever nest in Dunloe wood, which is quite near them and has abundance of suitable trees. Is there any “piseóg” involved?
Lately I have noticed rooks gather returning at evening and flying in a South Eastern direction and Denis Sweeney Tomies informs me that ha has noticed the rooks flying out over the Lake perhaps to the big rookery near Killarney Cathedral. Is this a change?