The woodlands of Ireland circa 1600

Abstract

In the general descriptions of Ireland written in Elizabethan and early Stuart times there are constant, although casual, references to the woodlands, Moryson, Perrott, Bagenal, Speede and Boate all allude to areas which were wooded or carried woody scrub on bog. Their descriptions are too general to be of use in assessing the probable extent of the woodland that remained at the end of the sixteenth-century, but they are pointers to the distribution. The same is true of contemporary maps although they are rather more helpful in that, in spite of their distortion of distance and configuration, they may indicate the position of a wood relative to physical features such as hills, rivers or bays.

Observations on the recent history of Lough Neagh and its drainage basin

“…Perhaps the most comprehensive land-use change in the history of Ulster occurred during the seventeenth century. The clearance of woodlands, first by the Tudors for military purposes at the turn of the century and then by English and Scottish for domestic and agricultural purposes later in the century, has been described and discussed by McCracken (1944McCracken ( , 1947McCracken ( , 1959McCracken ( , 1971. By the end of the seventeenth century most of Ulster's woods had been removed, although isolated stretches of forest existed into the eighteenth century (McCracken 1971).…”

Pollen Analyses of Sediments From Lough Ine and Ballyally Lough, Co. Cork, S.W. Ireland

“…In the late sixteenth century S.W. Ireland supported extensive mixed woodland (McCracken, 1959) and during the seventeenth century these were severely cut back. The timber was used for ship building, pipe and barrel stave production and to provide charcoal for iron smelting.…”

Littleton Bog, Tipperary: An Irish Vegetational Record

“…To him the surviving woodlands were not only a source of danger, for they gave shelter to Irish rebels and to wolves, but were also a source of profit. Four avenues of profit opened up: tanning of leather, shipbuilding, barrel-stave making, and iron smelting (McCracken, 1959). How rapidly the woodlands melted away is seen in the diagram.…”