Sir, - In the townland where I live there is no sign of the 15 or so families that lived in the area for generations. Only forest. This pattern is repeated all along the south bank of the Gweebarra from the new bridge to Doochary (a distance of some five miles). Few families remain in this area.
In the past there was some short-sighted justification for afforestation. The deprivation of these areas some 40 or 50 years ago was relieved in the short term by purchasing the land from the local people (often for a pittance) and paying wages to these now landless people to dig ditches for drainage and plant trees by hand. When this work was done, nothing was left but emigration. The problem was solved.
Stories are told of men turning the last sod on what had been their family farms for centuries, turning and walking away with what they wore on their backs, a few seldom seen again, most never. The mechanisation of the forestry industry with drainage done by huge machines that plough through once crowded cottages and harvesting done by machines that do the work of 40 men, has meant little work for those who remained.
The forests are largely owned by government and absent consortia who use European funding and tax relief to purchase lands and plant forests. Without the grants from Europe and tax relief for the wealthy, would it be worth their while to come here and destroy our lands?
By what right do they destroy natural Irish flora? By what right to they poison land with pesticides and herbicides? By what right do they use these chemicals in the vicinity of water courses so that they must eventually find their way into streams and rivers and kill our fish? By what right do they threaten to kill feral Irish goats? By what right do they destroy our local views, landscapes, culture, flora and fauna?
These plantations reek of the worst excesses of the absentee landlord system that plagued our rural economies for centuries. By taking the land out of local ownership we see the crippling repatriation of profits from the land that was the hallmark of English rule in Ireland.
One wonders if this modern version of absentee landlordism will give rise to agrarian unrest in rural areas. In the past the Whiteboys of Munster and Connaught and the Ulster Oakboys were viewed as a justifiable reaction to unfair practice. If they reappear, how will we view their modern equivalent? What will we call them? "The Spruce People"? - Yours, etc.,
Liam Miller,
Derryloughan, Doochary, Co Donegal.