Enthusiastic foresters win the RDS Award

If you could plant the kind of enthusiasm Paddy O’Reilly has for forestry, harvest it and sell it, you’d have a thriving business... The Anglo-Celt visited the award-winning forest Paddy and his wife Anne own at Ballyhillan, Crossdoney last Thursday and enjoyed a brief tour of 30 acres of well cared for oak, beech and Norway spruce. Paddy and Anne are the overall Farm Forestry winners in the annual RDS Forest Service Irish Forestry Awards. The judging panel said ‘they had an extremely well planned and managed plantation that blends in well with the landscape, and noted their genuine interest in forestry and the work they have done to aid wildlife and the visual landscape of the area’. The Belturbet couple, whose 30-acre forest is at Anne’s home place, won an RDS Silver Medal and the RDS Irish Forestry Perpetual Award in recognition of their efforts since they planted their trees in 1997. Paddy and Anne have long “been interested in nature and the countryside” (they have been involved with the Belturbet Walks and Heritage Group for 20 years, for example) and forestry suited the Crossdoney land, as they live 17 miles away, a distance that made traditional farming difficult. Paddy is also the Cavan IFA representative on the national forestry committee and is one of those working to set up a producer group in the county. Virginia-based Green Belt planted the land and managed it in the early years, while Teagasc forestry development officer Kevin O’Connell (and before him, Noel Kennedy) have been a huge help to Paddy and Anne with advice and guidance. Explaining the rationale behind the producer group, Paddy says that in Cavan there are more than 250 privately owned plantations that are more than 10 years old, and they will soon be ready for first thinnings. “Many of them are too small to market individually,” he said, “but as a group they can be marketed annually at a realistic price.” Paddy spends “three or four hours, about four days a week” maintaining the forest and is working with Kevin O’Connell setting up a co-op along the same lines as the successful one in Donegal. They held their second meeting in Ballyhaise last Thursday and Kevin told the Celt they are aiming it at people whose forests are at or near thinning age - year 13-15. “We want to make people aware of what they have in their forests, how to go about marketing their produce, to see if there are local job creation opportunities,” said Kevin (such as producing wood chips for burners in hotels or schools). “It’s about the added value of woodlands, the recreational and sporting values, trying to increase income... for example a number of woodlands joined together could provide tracks for walking, mountain biking or horse riding.” Paddy also planted 50 acres on the Yellow Road, near Aghalane Bridge in 2004, and says this country is well suited to forestry thanks to the climate and the soil. “Trees love mild and moist conditions,” said Paddy, comparing Ireland to Germany, where the sandy soil means there is a limit to the varieties that can grow. Despite the favourable conditions, Ireland has just 10% forestry cover while Germany has 35% and the UK has 30%. Paddy says there is a government target of 16-17% by 2020, but doubts if that will be achieved. Still, he and Anne are doing their best to help the country get there, and if all private forests are as good as theirs, our future appears green. They took the Celt for a walk through their forest, pointing out the features that impressed the judges and earned them their prize. “There’s a huge effort involved,” Anne explained, “you have to be prepared to put in a huge amount of work.” They said the 20 bird boxes, which their Belturbet neighbour Stephen Shannon made, and the access paths criss-crossing the forest were strong features. “Access is important for buyers and inspectors,” said Paddy, explaining that if potential buyers can’t see the trees properly they could under-value them. As well as making and maintaining those passages, clearing briars and under undesirable undergrowth, Paddy has to remove wolf branches, particularly from the oak, which are higher maintenance in general. Wolf branches are the stronger ones that would leave knots in the finished timber if they aren’t removed early on, so cutting them off is a continuous and vital task in a commercial forest. Paddy enjoys it though; enjoys being out there working with the birds, the occasional fox and the odd pheasant for company - in all weathers too. “You’d be surprised on the wettest or coldest day of the year in here,” he said. “I’d come out with a coat and gloves and a heavy pullover, last February when it was minus six or seven, after about 20 minutes I was getting warm and had to take the pullover off.” Paddy and Anne’s forest is ready for the harvest of thinnings now, and it remains “a work in progress”, says Paddy, “and we’ll keep doing our little bit”. It’s a labour of love for them too.