You know what Synge wrote of the oaks of Glencree:
My arms around you and I leanAgainst you, while the larkSings over us, and golden lights, and greenShadows are on your bark.
These words are inscribed on a block of Wicklow granite, near the entrance to Oak Glen, that splendid and successful initiative to bring an oak wood to Glencree in Wicklow again.
Something like 20,000 people have put up £10 each, for which not one, but six, oaks are planted. Five, naturally enough, will be taken out as the trees expand and grow. It is a long-term project, if you like. Suppose something like this had been set off at, say, the founding of the State, or at the end of World War Two. How high they would stand today. This project started in 1990, was launched by Charles Haughey, had its first tree planted by Mary Robinson before, if memory serves rightly, she was inaugurated, but after election. Since then, some 20,000 people have sent in their £10 - and multiples - for the good of the cause simply, for a special anniversary, or whatever. Anyway, now there are about 1,500 subscriptions, (tenners), to go, and the whole should be called in by autumn 1998.
Oak Glen was a small group set up by Jan Alexander as she then was, Tony Carey and others, and with some considerable help from Coillte. It is now more or less merged with the parent body Crann and operates from Crank House, Banagher, Offaly. You can still get your name on the Oak Glen list, with a nice certificate giving the number of the plot where your tree is. Just send your £10 to Oak Glen at the Banagher address given above.
All tree people will have been struck by a letter in this newspaper which pointed to loss of jobs and apparent emigration as a result of afforestation in Donegal. There is no doubt at all that the early Sinn Fein advocates of forestry saw in it more a means of employment and keeping people on the land, engaged in the wood industry. People are more important than trees. Some room for thought there.