Climate change - important new evidence

Our changing climate  - the latest findings

A characteristic of life today is the feeling of being overwhelmed by a regular onslaught of distressing news about wars and disasters.  As a result, it would be easy to relegate the climate crisis and switch attention to normal everyday concerns.  The danger is that we may be diverted away from worsening threats.  Diversion may even suit policy-makers who find reasons to discard their own targets which, in retrospect, they dismiss as unachievable (1).  This may lead to antipathy towards them and promote apathy about the imperative to address the big issue.

Three superb TV documentaries and related press reports provide compelling updates about the ever more critical impacts of our warming climate.  News that nobody wants to hear - but not all of it is bad.  These particular accounts merit more widespread attention.  What is emerging now is a picture that previous forecasts have underestimated the changes which are likely during this century.  This includes those of the International Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC) whose pioneering research won a Nobel Prize in 2007.

Glaciers

Ireland's national broadcaster RTÉ has presented the trio of documentaries which draw on a wide sweep of current work by climate scientists, oceanographers, ecologists and others in different continents (2).  In the opening episode, we are informed and shown graphic images to prove that Greenland's "vast" ice-sheet is melting five times faster than 20 years ago.  That was  when the IPCC was beginning its work.  

A combination of atmospheric and ocean warming are producing more rain and, ominously now, dark ice.  The latter is shocking evidence of absorption of carbon into the ice.  Whereas normal white ice reflects heat back, black ice absorbs heat thereby exacerbating the problem.  Together these factors are reinforcing and accelerating the speed and scale of melt-down.  Climate scientists are discussing various scenarios including a 5 metre rise in ocean levels this century.  It means stark consequences for coastal communities, potentially spreading 1/2 a mile inland.

In a separate report, details about coastal erosion growing more acute on Ireland's east coast are revealed (3) in the Irish Times.  A recent assessment by Geological Survey Ireland between 2000 and 2021 shows that 19% of the shoreline had experienced moderate erosion in that period, while 7% had experienced high erosion.  Portrane, Rush, Portmarnock and Donabate were identified as high erosion areas.  To make matters worse, in the latter part of that period, 2013-2020, there was "a rise in the rate and scale of erosion along soft coasts of Dublin."

The television documentary portrays an additional impact of the melting of Greenland's glaciers, namely its dilution of salty seawater with freshwater.  This entails serious consequences for our climatic lifeline - the Gulf Stream.  The documentary examines the consequential disruptive impacts on our weather patterns, on sea-life and of "ecosystem collapse." 

Another major issue relates to the impact of warming on the Artic and sub-Artic regions.  More particularly, the permafrost with its ice-like peaty soil is, in the documentary's wording, "being aroused" by warming.  This is causing long-time trapped toxic carbon, and also methane gases, to be released into the atmosphere.  The programme emphasises that this process is happening now and taking place at a faster rate than official forecasts have been predicting.  It concludes that "stopping emissions is the only fix."

Source: RTÉ Rising Tides

Adaptation

What, therefore, can we do to address the problems and the potential for "upheaval?"

The documentary's second programme presents an example of a long-established good practice.  A positive example of what can and is being done.  The Dutch have been dealing with sea defences for 1,000 years providing locks, polders, pumps and dykes.  Two-thirds of the Netherlands sits in a flood plain; one-third of the country lies below sea-level.  They claim to have climate-proofed the country until the end of the century.  Their underlying philosophy is not to "defeat" sea-level rise.  Instead they work at providing nature-based solutions, as illustrated in the programme.  They adopt a long-term vision, including examples of "the testing of infrastructure to destruction" over and over, year on year.  The technology and know-how to respond to the challenge exist.

In addition to these working examples that support the Dutch strategy, the documentary demonstrates a parallel administrative change made to their national system.  The country's Delta project for addressing climate change means that the issue is addressed by experts, "beyond politics."  The presenter explained that the very Dutch noun polder has become a verb meaning "to agree something in the common good."

The programme continues with another and sharply contrasting example of successful adaptation - most significantly, not in a first world country.  Bangladesh continues to experience cyclones, drought and heat waves, losing 10% of arable land, with the forecast loss of a similar percentage to come.  It is described by the documentary as the world's seventh most vulnerable country to climate change; despite which, as the presenter reports, its people say that their nation as the world's best adapted country to climate change.  Who would have thought that?

The report states that few people now die in cyclones because Bangladesh's climate plan includes a successful system of "social infrastructure."  The country adopts a comprehensive communal approach where "people look after each other."  Strategically-located Cyclone Centres provide emergency accomodation for livestock on one level with people living above.  

What an inspiring approach from such an impoverished, climate-ravaged and densely-populated country; and what a contrast it provides with the Florida Quays islands south of Miami, also filmed in the documentary.  Its residents are reported as debating the allocation to its public authorities of the enormous costs of raising a public road to provide them with access to their expensive properties. 

Episode two also considers how to handle drought and food security caused by a warming climate.  Examples of the devasting damage caused by wildfires in Catalonia are shown in graphic detail.  Last summer both parts of Ireland witnessed wildfires.  One lesson learned about adaptation to such events is what the scientists call "landscape management."  The Catalonian strategy involves the mixing of agriculture and forestry with the use of livestock - herds of sheep and goats - to adapt the landscape and make it less vulnerable to unmanageable fires.

To exemplify impacts on food production, the documentary examined sub-Saharan Malawi where the growing season is reducing because of ever higher temperatures.  Adaptation here involves working with nature to promote crop diversification and more intensive production during the shorter growing season.  In such locations, low-cost support from western nations providing infrastructure such as irrigation systems is crucial and cost-effective in many ways.

Stop overheating Earth

The documentary's third episode begins with the fact that four-fifths of global warming is caused by fossil fuels.  It poses (in my words) the $69 billion billion question - what are we actually doing to address the issue?  It begins with the USA and examines its main response, the belated Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), seen as a big step forward, leadership from America.  The Administration's aim is to provide tax incentives to encourage the "transitioning" of the American economy into going green.  We are reminded that the IRA (4) is all about "carrots but no sticks" - no measures to penalise pollution.  The documentary argues that the budget is a "tiny fraction of what is needed."

It singles out the one country that seems like a world-leader in making a decisive and early break from using fossil fuels, Sweden.  Its emissions per person, for example are currently half those of  Ireland.  Its strategy is to preserve nature, to develop renewable energy especially solar and hydro, along with some nuclear power.  The Swedes started the process of reducing dependence on oil and gas following the 1970's Middle Eastern oil crisis.  

I recall the time when in 1973 I bought my first house as oil prices had surged.  Since 1991 Sweden stepped up its approach and began taxing the use of carbon (a contrast with America's Act).  Currently only 2% of emissions in Sweden come from oil and gas.  Businesses such as the country's large steel industry are already running on zero omissions.

The programme speaks to experts about earlier predictions concerning coral reefs and their underestimating of the impact caused by ocean temperature rises.  Florida's reefs are reported to have fallen to a negligible 1-2% coverage, described by a scientist there as "the collapse of an ecosystem."  The documentary concludes that "the unthinkable has happened."

The emissions problems caused by aviation, huge relative to those of petrol-driven cars, are examined.  An expert at Cambridge University quotes research which shows that the impacts of the sector's huge fuel burn, for instance on landing, could be reduced in a number of administrative and other ways by 40%.  In discussion he conceded that it would take determined and far-reaching policy action by Governments to compel the airline industry to implement.

The documentary returns to Scandinavia to make a telling final point, to do with renewable energy sources. In the past Finland had a similarly distant attitude as does Ireland continue now about nuclear energy.  That stance has now changed completely with half of Finland's electricity coming from nuclear power.  Only one-tenth of its power currently comes from fossil fuels.

The 3-part RTÉ documentary is recommended to friends colleagues and all readers to digest at first hand.  Watching global experts explaining the tools that exist to address the earth's climatic problems; observing them spell out the potential for upheaval and chaos if we fail; and what we as citizens and communities need to be aware of, positives and negatives, if only for the sake of the planet and the futures of our grandchildren.

Carbon Majors Database

Knowledge is power - to which end, the carbon geographer Richard Heede established this database in 2013 to help identify polluters.  A newspaper article (5) highlights CMD's latest update (6):-

• 57 multinational companies are responsible for 80% of global greenhouse emissions since the 2016 Paris Agreement; 
• most of the producers increased their output of fossil fuels in the seven years since compared to the seven years before Paris; 
• of 122 of the world's biggest polluters, 65% of state entities and 55% of private-sector companies had scaled up production.  Apart from oil and gas companies, it includes coal, cement and mining interests; 
• the biggest investor-owned contributor to global emissions was ExxonMobil of the USA, linked to 3.6 gigatonnes of CO2 over seven years, or 1.4% of the global total; 
• Shell, BP, Chevron and TotalEnergies followed close behind, each responsible for at least 1% of emissions; and 
•  the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company whose chairman was president of COP28 last December, is the 20th biggest emitter on the list.

 

Activists protest against fossil fuels at the UN COP climate summit in Dubai in December 2023

Global Action Plan Ireland (7) was established in 1995 to inspire people and communities to become environmental "change makers."  It wilI play an important rolein the delivery of the new national climate strategy (8). Its leader Hans Zomer responded to the CMD update saying that "ultimately, it is people power that will change the behaviour of those who believe in business as usual." 

In similar vein, Richard Heede applauds the Barbabos Prime Minister's Bridgetown Initiative.  It includes a proposal that oil and gas companies contribute at least 10 cents in every dollar to a loss-and-damage fund.  This is to ensure that fossil fuel producers have a moral obligation to pay for damages thay have caused and exacerbated.  He adds that 

"if business as usual continues we won't have a livable planet for our children and                      grandchildren.  We must collect political corporate and public will to avoid the worst threat          that climate change poses.  We can do this."

 

© Michael McSorley 2024

References:-

1. BBC News 18 April 2024 "Scottish Government says 2030 Climate Target out of reach" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cq5n92qpdxzt

2. RTÉ "Rising Tides: "Ireland's Future in a Warmer World" https://www.rte.ie/player/series/rising-tides--ireland-s-future-in-a-warmer-world/10002411-00-0000?epguid=IP10002407-01-0001  Ep.1 broadcast 27 March, ep.2 on 3 April, ep.3 on 10 April 2024

3. Irish Times 20 April 2024 "Locals living on the edge seek solutions to coastal erosion" Barry J White

4. U.S Department of the Treasury https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/inflation-reduction-act

5. Irish Times 6 April 2024 "Rogues Gallery of Polluters Emerges" Kevin O'Sullivan.

6. The Carbon Majors Database: launch report April 2024                                                    https://carbonmajors.org/briefing/The-Carbon-Majors-Database-26913

7. https://globalactionplan.ie/

8. The Climate Action Plan 2024 https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/79659-climate-action-plan-2024/

Electric cars and climate change

Incentives

The controversy sparked by Prime Minister Sunak's recent announcement of a change in the U.K.'s policy on petrol-fuelled vehicles reminds me of our family decision 3-4 years ago to think about buying an electric car.

Aware of the compromise option of a hybrid car, we started from the mindset of going green fully rather than considering a vehicle which still uses fossil fuel.  If and when we go green, we will go green.  Consequently, just before Covid arrived on these shores, my attention was grabbed by an enticing incentive to buy an all-electric car and I decided to make an inquiry.  As a driver of a 2006 VW Golf turbo diesel, a twin financial offer that could have saved me £9,000 seemed too good to miss, combining a mix of economic and environmental sense.  

Part one was a scrappage scheme carrying a grant of £4000 to trade in the ageing diesel; part two was a £5000 government grant to subsidise my potential trade-in to a brand new VW electric vehicle, an EV in the new lingo.  I remember visiting my nearest dealership for a briefing along with all the seductively alluring sales talk.  As the retailer had taken no delivery of the new EVs at that early stage, I went home to consider what to do, including saving up. 

Following the science

My interest in the new VW EV had been stimulated not just by the financial incentive as much as my wish to heed the scientific evidence about the detrimental impacts of fossil fuels on nature and on public health.  I saw it as a responsible reaction to Government incentives for developing our strategy on the issue of climate change, almost like a civic duty, allowing us citizens to reduce our individual carbon footprints.  

Still interested, we subsequently chose to postpone a decision on purchase of an EV to allow the technology more time to improve.  Our thinking was that assuming Government continues to regard climate change as an emergency that warrants urgent action, we had every reason to be confident of its incentives remaining in place, maybe even improving.

Austere policy returns

With the onset of Covid and subsequent passage of time, the so-called carrots of policy in the form of grants and other financial incentives have gradually disappeared, withdrawn by the public authorities for whatever reasons.  As recently as April this year, for example, the availability of no-cost charging points offering free electricity and located in places such as public car parks was withdrawn.  The use of electricity from surviving charging points must instead be paid for by the EV owner.  Likewise grants to help households to instal charging points at home have also been withdrawn. 

Party politics

Perhaps negative emotions of disappointment and disgruntlement are the incorrect reaction to the removal of incentives aimed at promoting sustainable transport and EV sales.  We should know from experience of living here that changing environmental policy has happened before.  

As soon as David Cameron became leader of the Conservatives, for instance, one of his headline actions was to proudly pin his green credentials to the Party's mast.  He inserted a symbolic oak tree as the Party's logo, where it has remained in various iterations a decade and a half further on.  His reforming environmental zeal, however, was subsequently exposed (1) with his now infamous instruction to officials "to cut the green crap." 

Now, post-Brexit, not to mention the exits of three other Prime Ministers, after Covid19, a cost of living crisis, and with Russia's invasion of Ukraine continuing the incumbent PM has stimulated debate and not a little argument by announcing the latest u-turn on environmental policies.  Of these the most prominent change is the decision to postpone the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 to 2035.

The Times cartoonist Peter Brookes (23 09 23) pillories PM Sunak's about-turn

Some commentators remind us that this new stance reflects, in part at least, the unexpected retention of the Conservative Party's Parliamentary seat in Uxbridge in June against the odds.  To the pleasant surprise of Party strategists, a famous victory was achieved because of unpopularity among Conservative voters of the Labour Party Mayor of London's environmental plan to extend ULEZ, inner London's Ultra Low Emission Zone (an initiative of the predecessor Conservative Mayor), across greater London.  Under this calculation the by-election result gives the PM some kind of a mandate for appealing to voters by "reducing the burden" of environmental restrictions.

Infrastructural failing

On the other hand, the current discourse sits on top of growing criticism especially in recent months from current and prospective EV car owners about the U.K's inadequate supply of charging point infrastructure right across the country compared to our neighbours in Europe.  This infrastructural failing is regarded as a major disincentive to the growth in trade in EVs.  

A recent BBC documentary quantifies the undersupply both in GB and in Northern Ireland (2) relative to Europe.  The programme's datasets illustrate that a bad situation across England Scotland and Wales, for example, is almost three times worse in Northern Ireland. 

 

One comment in an otherwise informative account was the claim by Emissions Analytics that "electric vehicles are not a cure-all for our environmental problems."  No EV driver would ever make such a hyperbolic claim.  If anything, the logical position is that EVs are a significant if small part of a multi-faceted strategy that includes everything from heat pumps to diet in the face of the climate emergency.

My EV

Based on glowing reviews (3) of a particular model which emphasised its battery range and relatively lower price, seventeen weeks after placing the order my new MG4 Trophy EV arrived in Belfast from Nanjing in April this year.  In the absence of infrastructure and financial inducements from our green Government, I was compelled to dig more deeply.

To address the problem of the undersupply of charging points and no more free charging from April, I invested in the installation of a wall-mounted home charger.  And to assist with economising on running costs, I had a new electricity meter installed to access lower cost battery-charging after midnight.

Made in China

Again, it should be unsurprising, but what now appears like another policy reversal, this time on international trade, has been emerging with more regularity in recent times.  Since a Labour Government's promotion of business development with China (including the sale of the British marque of MG to China in 2006) and subsequent promotion by Conservative administrations of Chinese investment in various sectors of the U.K's economy, Britain (followed by the EU) is becoming increasingly critical of China's enthusiastic take-up of the resultant business opportunies.  

Morris Group cars, it should be noted, originate in the English Midlands; the new MG EVs bear little connection to their predecessor models apart from the marque.  

The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has complained (4) about Chinese-made cars "distorting" EU competition as "global markets are flooded with cheaper Chinese electric cars."  

Objectively speaking, any buyer of an expensive new car wants to get the best quality at the most competitive price.  Westminster's withdrawal of its financial incentives coupled with low investment in charging infrastructure are hindering EV sales in Britain.  The BBC Spotlight documentary presented evidence, for example, from the Netherlands where EV sales and public charging points significantly exceed those in the U.K.  

Who would have thought that English Scottish Welsh and Irish car drivers who want to own a green-striped EV have to rely on Chinese subsidies rather than on the U.K. to reduce their carbon footprint.

IPCC

Ever since the International Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, was established 35 years ago in 1988 by the United Nations and the World Metereological Organisation it has published regular reports warning the world about the impacts of human activity on our planet.  Climatological experts from a wide range of nations provide the empirical evidence, its data-led forecasts becoming more and more alarming in recent years.  

The IPCC's first report back in 1990 revealed that the rise in carbon dioxide levels has pushed Earth's 1990 temperature from 0.7 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to 1.3 degrees Celsius.  

Environmental calamaties in the form of raging wildfires and apocalyptic floods across the world have claimed too many lives, destroying land and property even taking this year alone.   The tragic signs of disaster have been seen in Australia, Hawaii California and New York, Canada, many places across Europe from the Canary Islands and Portugal through Austria to Greece.  To these add the recent scenes of catastrophic floods in Tunisia destroying dams, reminders to everybody of the urgent dangers of lethargy and inaction.

The signs are on our own doorstep too.  The State of Nature 2023 Report provides a graphic description of the parlous condition of nature and biodiversity across the U.K.  Closer to home the toxic state of the biggest "freshwater" lake in Ireland and Britain, Lough Neagh, is a national embarrassment (5).  

More specifically, the State of Nature report (6) emphasises worrying reductions in wildlife.  In GB it reports that one in six species face extinction, such as the turtle dove and the hazel dormouse.  Northern Ireland, it says, is one of the world's most nature-depleted areas (7) with 12% of species assessed at risk of extinction.  Extinction, no less.

The Report demands "urgent action to slow down biodiversity loss and to try to reverse the damage of recent decades...."  And yet, sacked politicians idle as our enchanted isle's freshwater is overcome by toxic blue-green algae.

It doesn't make any sense at a critical tipping point for nature, in a deteriorating global emergency, for the U.K. with its aspirations to be a global leader and allegedly taking back control of all of its affairs, to row back now on environmental policies.  What sort of signal does that communicate to its own people and to the world at large?

© Michael McSorley 2023

 

References

1. Rowena Mason 21 November 2013 The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/21/david-cameron-green-crap-comments-storm

2. BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight 26 September 2023 "The Electric Road Test" Reporter Conor Spackman

3. Irish Times 30 September 2022 https://www.irishtimes.com/motors/2022/09/30/mg-delivers-its-best-car-in-decades-and-its-priced-to-give-its-rivals-sleepless-nights/

4. Financial Times 13 September 2023 "EU to launch anti-subsidy probe into Chinese electric vehicles https://www.ft.com/content/55ec498d-0959-41ef-8ab9-af06cc45f8e7

5. Irish Times 23 September 2023 Freya McClements "The lough isn't just dying, it's being killed:" The clotted mess choking Lough Neagh

6. BBC News  27 September 2023 "Nature crisis: Ons in six species at risk of extinction in GB"https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66923930

7. Belfast Telegraph 28 September 2023 "Report says Northern Ireland is one of the world's most nature-depleted areas"
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/report-says-northern-ireland-is-one-of-the-worlds-most-nature-depleted-areas/a2031004888.html

Native trees - our heritage

The Tree Council of Ireland published a really helpful poster about the island’s native trees a few years ago.  

It included vivid illustrations of 12 such trees and their leaves alongside tri-lingual names and succinct descriptions in English (1).  Prominently displayed is the Sessile or Irish oak.  Otherwise known as Quercus petraea in Latin, or Dair ghaelach in Irish, its characteristics are described thus by the Tree Council:- 

“The buds of the oak are borne on brownish twigs with three or four terminal buds clustered together.  Catkin flowers are produced in early April and are wind-pollinated.  The characteristic lobed leaves appear soon afterwards.  The sessile, or stalkless, acorns which sit directly on the twigs ripen in autumn.  Height  - up to 37 metres.”   

Interestingly, the poster also shows that only one of the other 11 trees, the Ash (Fraxinus excelsior, Fuinseóg), can exceed that height at 40 metres.

 

For the record, the other ten specimens on the Tree Council’s list are Scots pine, horse chestnut, silver birch, wych elm, alder, wild cherry, yew, rowan, holly and hazel.

 

 

Trees Matter

 

Contemporary anxieties about climate change and about personal health (including loss of knowledge about natural remedies) are increasingly focusing public concern for the state of nature.  

The mid-May week saw the production of another authoritative report, this one from the World Meteorological Organisation warning about a climatic event in the coming months, one that will have far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the natural environment (2). 

 

To help deal with the threats, the need to implement adaptation and mitigation strategies advocated by bodies like the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Panel on Climate Change assumes more urgency, literally, month by month. 

Acknowledgement of the crucial role of trees, not least their ability to capture carbon, becomes a strategic imperative.  

 

Among the many facts we learned on a recent short course at Queens University Belfast (QUB), for instance, are that forests hold around 45% of the carbon stored on land; that a tree absorbs approx 10-40 kg of CO2 per year depending on species and stage of growth; and that most of the world’s biodiversity is in forests (3).   

That is before even mentioning the physiological, psychological, aesthetic and other health-giving benefits bestowed by trees - while not forgetting the scientific links and priceless clues that trees provide connecting us to our past.

 

Native trees in particular have an added advantage over exotic imported species with a natural ability to attract local wildlife and to promote biodiversity.  Oaks, however, are the most special because they support more life than any other native tree, attracting wildlife and being the most friendly Irish native tree for biodiversity.  

 

According to the Woodland Trust squirrels, jays and badgers love the sessile oak’s acorns; caterpillars flock to eat its leaves; and, uniquely, 326 species of wildlife are found only on oak.

 

The paradox, however, is that today this island, for all its wholesome emerald reputation, has one of Europe’s lowest rates of tree cover.  

According to Coillte (4), Ireland’s figure in 2020 for forest cover is 11% compared to Europe’s average of 33½%.  Less than 2% of Ireland's cover is native woodland.  The plan is to extend cover from 11 to 18% in the coming decades (5).   

 

The Woodland Trust’s comparative rate for the UK in 2021 is 13.2% (6), better but still low.

 

Dinnseanchas (the lore of place names)

 

Expertise that can provide clues about respecting our trees is available from other sources, going back in written records to medieval annals.  These include the dinnseanchas (8), 11th and 12th century manuscripts of Irish literature including poetry and place-names.

The related Irish gaelic word seanchaí translates as a story-teller, in the sense of an old wise person, a reciter of ancient lore, where story-telling was and still is like a national art-form. 

 

One such narrative author, the youthful linguist and folklorist Manchán Magan, takes up the challenge and deals with native trees in his recent best-selling book (7).  

Referring to pre-Christian Ireland, he exemplifies the Irish word bile which means “sacred tree” or “ancient tree.”  Such was the significance of ancient trees to communities that the word bile appears in place-names (e.g. Maigh Bhile or Moville in County Donegal). 

 

As if to demonstrate the connections which trees have to people and communities here, he adds that of the more than 60,000 townlands across Ireland 13,000 are named after native trees.  

They include  

• beith (birch e.g East Tyrone’s enchanting Bronze Age stone circle built over an earlier neolithic site at Beaghmore, meaning a large birchland), 
• iúr (yew e.g. An Iúr Newry),  
• sceach (hawthorn e.g. in Co Tyrone the poetically-named Sceichín an rinnce, little hawthorn of the dancing place), 
• coll (hazel),  
• cuileann (holly) - 
• with the most common tree-name being dair (oak).  

This frequency of use was, he says, because the oak was considered to be the strongest, longest-lived and most venerable of trees.  

 

As Magan puts it, the ancient laws of Ireland (the Brehon Laws) ranked trees in order of nobility, with the oak always at the top of the seven Nobles of the Wood.  

Our forebears respected oak as the most dominant and slowest-growing, invaluable for construction, barrel-coopering, boat-building and furniture.  Its bark, Magan adds, was used for tanning leather and for making black ink and dye. 

We learned on the QUB course that Brehon Laws provided stiff punishment for those who damaged trees. For instance, for branch-cutting of Nobles the penalty was a 1 year old heifer, for fork-cutting a 2 year old heifer, for base-felling a milch cow, and for tree removal 2 and a half milch cows.  

 

I suspect that if there were dinnseanchas awards in today's world, Sessile oak would be declared native tree of the current (or maybe any other) millennium.

 

Another author, linguist and folklorist Niall MacCoitir (9) says that such was the high regard that pre-Christian Ireland had for trees, the creators of the first known Gaelic alphabet Ogham named its letters after trees.  

He shows, for instance, that Irish oak was the seventh consonant of the Ogham alphabet and was the ninth month of the Ogham tree calendar.  

Elsewhere he cites botanist Charles Nelson’s finding that more than 1,600 townlands in Ireland contain the Irish word Doire (single oak or oakwood).  

 

Magan expands on that theme saying that subsequent Christian sites at places like Doire (Derry) or at Cill Dara (Kildare, church of the oak) are likely to have been sites of pagan worship located in woodland before the first timber chapels and stone churches were built.  

The same might apply to Éadan Doire (Edenderry Co Antrim, brow of the oakwood). 

 

In line with his book’s absorbing thesis of attempting (and probably succeeding) to connect mythology to actual archaeological and sacred sites, Magan laments the fact that 

“unfortunately our landscape lacks many of its old trees and its old-forest growth… our forests were felled for shipbuilding, construction and iron smelting.. These old trees were believed to represent transition points between this land and realms beyond; each had a name and would have had guardians to protect it just as a temple or holy well would have today.” 

Trees in Ireland aren’t just sources of firewood or timber for construction.  

Drawing on Niall MacCoitir’s book Magan also concludes that trees were regarded as sacred, imbued with supernatural powers, with oak the most sacred because it is the most practical.

To illustrate and provide a flavour of the folklore of Irish oak trees, consider the following five of many specific examples from MacCoitir’s fascinating research:- 

• a poem in the Dinnshenchas talks about the ancient lore of Samhain (our family-oriented festival of Halloween) being learned in oakwoods from spirits and fairy folk;  
• the most famous oak tree in Irish legend, the Oak of Mugna (Moone in County Kildare) was closely associated with kingship.  The oak was enormous in size, girth and height, bearing three crops a year - acorns, nuts and apples - and there are two poems about it in the Dinnshenchas; 
• Christian sites like Daire Calgaich (Derry) are associated with oak groves which were probably chosen for their pre-Christian significance.  Such was his regard for this oakwood that Colmcillle declared that he was more fearful of the sound of axes in it than he was of death;

• the oak is a symbol of kingship because of its connotations of strength and fertility.  The word oak in Irish also means a chief and the same applies in Welsh.  MacCoitir adds that the Annals of Connaught for AD 1442 describe the children of king Ardgar Mór Mag Mathgamna as "fragrant trees and mighty oaks of bounty" for their generosity in distributing horses and treasure, money to every suppliant; and
• recent excavation at Navan Fort, the ancient site of Emain Macha, found a large oak post in the centre of a massive circular structure, the purpose of which is believed to be primarily ritual. It is thought, MacCoitir says, that the post may have been the focus of ritual activities to the Celtic Jupiter as a sacred symbol of tribal integrity.

 

Best examples of Irish Oak

 

Against this background, could it be that Lagan Valley Regional Park can claim to be the best place on the island to see Irish oak trees in the modern era?   It seems so.

 

This is based on the findings of a survey led by Belfast City Council’s then Forest Officer in collaboration with Queens University (10).  

More particularly, the survey found that Belvoir Forest is home to the oldest recorded oak trees in Ireland.  Many are over 300 years old.  The oldest specimen (1642) pre-dates the Battle of the Boyne by a half-century.  According to the report’s author, Dr Ben Simon, “it is the oldest date so far found for any tree in a woodland in Ireland.” 

 

He adds that the largest of Belvoir’s veteran oaks and known affectionately as Granddad, “is a massive squat hollow tree with a circumference of 8.8 metres just above ground level making it one of the largest oaks in Ireland.” 

 

14 May 2023 Dr Ben Simon at "Granddad" oak, Belvoir Forest Park Belfast

On the recent guided walk (11), I asked him if Granddad is a sessile oak or a common oak.  That, it seems, remains an open question.  

He replied by saying that the survey’s field botanists and geneticists could not agree which of the veteran oaks are Quercus robur (common oak) and which are Quercus petraea (Irish oak).  

His 2005 book (on its page 14) about Belvoir Park (12) made precisely the same point.  

 

Perhaps almost two decades on, one wonders if a follow-up survey and analysis might add value to Dr Simon's initiative, given modern advancements in technology. 

 

It's also encouraging to know, as the Lagan Valley Park Ranger pointed out on last month's walk/talk (10), that the Park's volunteers previously collected 13,000 oak acorns for planting; and that now, 15 years on, new areas of oakland are thriving, much of this in places close to the centre of Belfast.

Never before has humanity had greater need of these native specimens. 

 

O ye mighty oaks. 

  

 

© Michael McSorley 2023

 

 

References

1. www.treecouncil.ie and irishtimes.com/treesofireland
2. RTÉ News George Lee 17 May 2023 https://www.rte.ie/news/environment/2023/0517/1384030-climate-global/
3. Queens University Belfast, School of Open Learning. "Native Trees: their identification and place in society" Roy Nelson. Spring 2023
4. Coillte, Ireland’s State-owned commercial Forestry business.  Oct 2020 report https://www.coillte.ie/a-brief-history-of-irelands-native-woodlands/
5. https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/advice/general-topics/history-of-forestry-in-ireland/
6. https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/state-of-uk-woods-and-trees/
7. “Listen to the Land Speak” Manchán Magan 2022
8. Dinnseanachas:- https://codecs.vanhamel.nl/Dinnshenchas_%C3%89renn
9. “Ireland’s Trees, myths legends and folklore” Niall MacCoitir 2015 edition
10. Dr Ben Simon “If Trees Could Talk: The Story of Woodlands around Belfast.” 2009
11. “A Walk back in Time” 14 May 2023 and “Treasured Trees” 21 May 2023 Dr BenSimon, Lagan Valley Regional Park Events Programme 2023
12. “A Treasured Landscape the heritage of Belvoir Park” Ben Simon 2005