PUBLICATIONS

Issue 40 - Winter 2006

The Greying of Ireland

During a tree-planting ceremony back in early autumn, Bertie Ahern, the long-time Taoiseach and leader of this shamefully under-wooded country, played the increasingly popular Green card. Stressing his great belief in the importance of trees, he waxed lyrical from his script about how wonderful the government has been at planting them, how they nurture our people and bring them health and wellbeing. Hmmm. I mean, can you imagine how wonderful Ireland would be if we'd planted native and sympathetic deciduous trees all those years ago instead of destroying mountains, rivers and beautiful landscapes with vast tracts of overbearing conifers?

This is the man who has not only presided over the destruction of the once lovely and spacious leinster lawn on Merrion Square - which is now a car-park - but over what can only be described as the "greying of Ireland", perhaps best exemplified as creeping suburbanisation, when every day sees lakes and rivers polluted, indigenous architecture bulldozed, large trees felled with impunity and precious green spaces in town and country disappear under private developments, as often as not pushed through against the advice of the professional planners.

With the Green Party still rather pathetically lacking in specific policies on trees, and indeed horticulture and landscape in general, we can only hope that Bertie has really had a Damascene conversion, that he has seen the light and is going to insist that for every good tree destroyed by developers both private and public, at least ten more will be planted; that in his new mission to look after the well-being of his own people he will follow the lead of the Baron Haussmann who, when redesigning Paris in the 19th century, decreed that no citizen should have to live less than 500 metres from a Bois, or health-promoting wooded place.

In 1765 the first landscaping plan for the troubled leinster lawn - then the extensive town garden of the fashionable FitzGeralds, Earls of Kildare and Dukes of leinster - was completed, and an advertisement for a contractor to make the garden was placed in Faulkner's Dublin Journal. Even then, there was a bi' of bovver attached to the garden, this time because of the contractor, a Mr William Thompson.

Mr T, it would appear, had been let go because of his disregard for other people. In another advertisement in the same Journal two years later, in 1767, Mr T was told straight out that he need not apply for a new maintenance contract "on account of his imposing behaviour", which I gather at the time meant high-handed, overbearing and bullying behaviour (still evident on occasion in leinster House, one would have to say).

Now, I believe that being in Government, to put it simply, is all about maintaining what is good in a country and improving what is not. And Bertie Ahern, if he wants to win the next big maintenance contract at leinster House, should start taking the growing green vote very seriously indeed. People are worried about waste and pollution, and pesticides in their food and the price of everything, and they're getting restless.

The Taoiseach, who was riding high on a favourable opinion poll at the time of writing this, should make hay while the going is still good. He could begin by ordering all State and Semi-state bodies to turn out their lights during daylight hours, and when nobody's home at night, and also reduce the stifling heat in their buildings. Then he could start peeling back some of the grey - using green methods of course - that has spread like a fungus over Ireland during his time in office.

His first high-profile project could be the reinstatement of Leinster lawn as garden, replete with its soothing expanse of green grass, which used to be studded with massed plantings of species crocus and old varieties of Irish bred narcissus that opened like a bejewelled tapestry every winter in late January and didn't close again until the last poet's narcissus faded out in May.

Alternatively, leinster lawn could move with the times and be laid out as a totally modern, naturalistic prairie planting that would sweep gracefully down from the back steps of Richard Castle's masterpiece of a house to the garden railings that face Merrion Square. Whatever the style of planting, it would be a wonderful start for Bertie's new mission to green over the grey, and a great crowd pleaser too. Just think of the photo opportunities on Press Day and the endless column inches that would follow Big Bertie should he decide to stay on his road to Damascus, planting trees as he goes along his enchanted way.

Helen Rock

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