A walk in Ballyseedy Wood

Ted Cook

The writer was very privileged to be requested to lead a wood walk at Ballyseedy for the Participants of Kerry Earth Day (Saturday September 30th 2006).  My hosts were the Diocesan Commission for Peace, Justice and Creation, in partnership with the Gortbrack Organic Farm in nearby Ballymacelligot District.  On an otherwise showery day, our two hour walk was dry, whilst Ballyseedy was approaching "Autumn Beauty".  The attendance was as diverse as the secondary, semi-natural and variety of the woodland  teachers; sadhus; nuns; local; a forestry inspector.  Our ages, like the gender balance, were almost all-encompassing.

Ballyseedy, Beal Átg na Síoga or Ford of the Fairies, presents a wonderful euphemism from the prehistoric period  several placenames mask humour.  Ballyseedy is the flood plain, at 24 metres above sea level, of the River Lee, and like another flood plain on another River Lee in County Cork, only the fairies could possible ford the very deep alluvium of the Valley bottoms.

Measuring 99 acres in extent, Ballyseedy is a narrow wood running East-West, with 28 hectares of Ash-Alder residual alluvial woodland (a priority SAC under the 1992 Habitats Directive) hugging the deep wetlands to the South of the water course, more a "water body" when one begins to see a "flood meadow" as an inherent function of the watercourse.

Ballyseedy is the last vibrant and dynamic post-glacial native woodland of any size in North Kerry - Eileen McCracken in 1952 inexplicably makes no mention of this "water-course level" wood, though she alludes to Glanageenty Wood four miles distant.  Glanageenty and tiny remnant around Camp the Sessile Oaks with Holly undercanopy.

Ballyseedy is also unique in that it is unlike Tomie's Wood (Killarney National Park), Coole Park (South Galway), Brackloon (Co. Mayo), Dromore Nature Reserve (East Galway) and Old Head (foot of Croagh Patrick to the South) among many others that were partially coniferised and consequently disgfigured by our Forest Service in the earlier part of the 20th century.

At Ballyseedy, the great gnarled Oaks with their "mossy old bones" for limbs and the scattered specimen Beech "straight as spears and tall as towers", for me, represent the youngest generation of this eco-system.  It is of critical heritage value because, having built on her successes since the last ice-age, nature has incorporated and managed the superimposed embankments and parkland plantings since Elizabethan times.

Simply observe the lichens, toadstools and ground floor botany of the bulk of the wood  Bluebells in the Ash/Hazel wood; Watermint, Meadowsweet and Iris in the wet Alder/Willow (Grey Willow primarily) portions; mixed wildflowers about the mighty Oaks, Beech, Horse Chestnut and importantly the hundreds of Hornbeams, in addition to mature sycamore, planted as valuable specimen timbers in all of Heland's demesnes.

Ballyseedy's extremely rare Ash/Alder flooded wood was very nearly lost in 1995 when Kerry County Council voted to drive the N21 through this narrow flooded wood and reroute the River Lee, an impact somewhat more important than the 1709 and 1782 hardwood plantings by the Blennerhassett Family, who owned Ballyseedy Townland since the late 1500s.

Following the issue closely since the purchase by Coillte of Ballyseedy Wood - since the passing over of the late Hilda Blennerhassett in 1965 - I recall one voice in Kerry County Council by the name of Courtney who dissented.  "Beir Bua a Duine Uasal!"  County Council Engineer explained that not to go through Ballyseedy Wood "would involve the knocking of five houses".

Was "Active Citizenship" ever so effectively galvanise, before or since, as that displayed by the Ballyseedy Action Group - sprung up like a Chanterelle fungus - and subscribed to by the thousands of the local community.  Within a year, under the auspices of this auspicious Action Group, ownership was sold to the community by Coillte, a condition of which was the registration of title (of Ballyseedy) in the name of Kerry County Council.  Under Kerry County Council's ownership, the Forest Service is charged with its maintenance - hopefully not too zealous a management.

Formerly Duchas, the National Parks and wildlife Service (NPWS - a division of the Dept. of Environment) are engaged at Ballyseedy in the protection of the SAC (E.O.10/ALNION - GLUTINOSO/INCANNE - RESIDUAL ALLUVIAL WOODS - 1992 EU HABITATS DIRECTIVE).

Ballyseedy is rich in Daubenton Bats  according to a detection some years ago.  The Forest Inspector alerted our group,  during  our walk, that Lesser Horseshoe Bats were foraging among the open spaces around the mature planted and naturalised timbers.  Flying a meter above ground, dense sub-climax or scrubwoods are barely navigable by this species, with its stronghold in the cow-rich/dung insects/warm moist Southwest of our Island.

Jays, the garrullows crow of the old spinneys, are recorded at Ballyseedy - but one notes that the ecologically intact "disaster prevention function" of old  old genetic reservoirs restricts and most times prohibits any takeover by the introduced trees.  Sycamore is considered to be an exception and we were assured by the forester that management would entail merely the continuous removal of Sycamore seedlings and the fine venerable parents would be spared.

Snowberry Sloes present an introduced American shrub that, like Jap Knotweed or Wild Raspberry, can pose long-term impacts - it can infest and overwhelm long established hedgerows and field boundaries.  Like the Magpie, Giant Hogweed, Laurel and the Grey Squirrel, generally introduced to create a good wildfowling environment of to simply embellish the demesne, Snowberry can be traced back invariably to the Big House and its fickle fashions.

For some of those "fashions" we do need to be thankful.  At Ballyseedy, the "rise and fall" of the Trees, exotic and endemic, sustained healthy soil fungi and especially the Saproxylic Insects (whose job it is to decompose the dead lignins and make them very appetising to the "mycorrhizal internet" of the woodfloor) ensuring thus that an unbroken lineage, stretching back to Erin's youthful days, remains in the floral/faunal sub-Kingdom that is Ballyseedy Wood.

Ted Cook

The Woodland League