On Ireland's Forests

Two million years ago just prior to the glaciation which enveloped Ireland, the island was covered in soils up to 30m thick in some areas, and the climate was warm and tropical. After the glaciation the landscape was changed drastically, looking very similar to the rocky terrain seen today. Between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago the land bridges connecting Ireland to Britain and to continental Europe were covered by the sea, and between 9,000 and 10,000 years ago the first humans settled in Ireland. At that time the landscape was covered with many small lake (still present today), but with much less turf bog. Instead, great forests of oak, elm, ash, birch, and pine covered the lowlands. Between 6,000 to 5,000 years ago the population was replaced by a new people migrating from the mainland. These people, unlike their predecessors, were agriculturalists. By that time the forests were in a slight decline – the soils were poor and the bogs were growing so conditions were not favorable – and with the new arrival their decline accelerated.

In the 1200s deforestation accelerated the decline further. It was at that time that the English, in their attempts to conquer Ireland, began attacking the woods. It was commonly believed that “the Irish could not be tamed while the leaves were on the trees,” so King Edward I declared in a statute given in 1296 that:

“The Irish enemy, by the density of the woods, and the depths of the adjacent morasses, assume a confident boldness; the king’s highways are in places so overgrown with wood, and so thick and difficult, that even a foot passenger can hardly pass. Upon which it is ordained that every lord of a wood, with his tenants, through which the highway was anciently, shall clear a passage where the way ought to be, and remove all standing timber, as well as understood.”

The English eventually had to retreat after the Gaelic Revival and black plague epidemic, and the forests were left relatively alone until the 1600s.

In the 1600s the demand for wood in England greatly exceeded the supply. Businessmen, with the support of Elizabeth I, turned to Ireland to secure greater resources. While Elizabeth I supported the exploitation of the Irish forests for fulfilling England’s demand, she also ordered their destruction in order to deny the Irish of the shelter they provided. While forestry conservation practices were beginning to form in England, they were not brought to Ireland, and the forests were all but gone by the mid 1600s.