Prospecting for gold at Cabragh Wetlands

In the driving wind and bitter cold we search for signs of hope and change.”

Can spring be far behind?” is all very fine but Lá Fhéile Bhríde has been the harbinger of such extreme weather that we miss the emergence of life once again but value the fact that we are here to witness it while remembering the many who are not.
Within my isolated room, searching for the small nodules of white fluff on the golden willow or admiring the purple heather peeping through the snow, a headline on the financial supplement to an Irish daily paper catches my eye - “Green investing grows as value of sustainability rises.”

I read that green and environmentally responsible investing is no longer a conscience sating fringe activity but now much more in the mainstream and is only likely to grow in the coming years. The European Commission is seeking to move €1 trillion into green portfolios. Fires in Australia and California alongside floods across the world are encouraging millennials in particular who now want their investments to have a low carbon footprint. They do not want fossil fuels, they want renewable energy instead and it’s happening much more quickly than anticipated.

These money people are looking at the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement and want to take their first steps on the journey to carbon neutral.

As always, the real pick me up is in nature itself. I have often wondered why hazel catkins are called lambs’ tails but those flecks of gold along the hedgerow are just that-pure gold at a time of cold and hardship for man and animal. They have been lifting human hearts since the first arrival of man in Ireland where hazel formed the major part of the understorey of the canopy oak forest. It would amount to 70% of the tree cover around Littleton and this whole area at the time of Christ.

Little wonder then that it features so prominently in ancient folklore where the salmon of knowledge eats the nuts of the seven hazel trees that grow on the banks of the Boyne and were the source of its wisdom, sacred knowledge and mystic insight.

Each king, in the time of the 150 petty kingdoms that formed the political web of Iron Age Ireland was crowned with a hazel rod in his hand. No wonder that the archaeological excavations at Lisheen Mine showed a managed landscape for the growth of hazel stretching back to the bronze age , 4,500 years ago to provide shelter, food and path laying.

The Viking city of Dublin, excavated at Wood Quay in the sixties revealed a whole city made of wattle i.e. hazel and daub i.e. mud walled houses, layer upon layer. As late as the 1940’s, the internal walls of vernacular thatched houses all over the country were being constructed in similar fashion.

We seldom see a full grown hazel tree except in places like Muckross Park in Killarney. Traditionally, hazel trees are coppiced i.e. cut close to the ground on a seven year cycle to produce long straight poles. The tree may live for hundreds of years if coppiced correctly. Split green hazel rods were woven into hurdles to fence in pigs, cattle and sheep.

For many years, the late Jack Doherty, suaimhneas síoraí dó, fashioned beautiful walking sticks from the hazel rods on Killough Hill. Today, Michael Walsh of the Heath, Thurles continues that tradition and allies it with the working of antler horn and other decoration. Michael, who brought his hazel rod on his great pilgrimage on foot from Holycross to Santiago de Compostela is often with his wares at the Thurles Farmers’ Market at the dog track on a Saturday morning showcasing the skills he learned among the hazel thickets of his native Connemara. Even in this supra technological age the sight of the water diviner with his hazel gabhlóg is still a common sight.

Hazel woods are forever associated with the elusive red squirrel now happily returning to its old haunts with the help of the pine marten. The nuts are tell tale signs of its presence. The squirrel holds the nut firmly in its forepaws and gnaws an incision across the tip. It sticks its lower incisors into the opening and prizes open the shell splitting it in two. The split nut indicates the presence of squirrels.

Yes, there may be gold under furze but here in Cabragh natural gold is everywhere- why not begin prospecting.
Stay at home; stay safe; social distance; wear a mask; wash your hands; follow the rules.
Slán go fóill.