Bards From The Woods

Time In The Forest Lisa Watters of Dundalk is one of the most motivated Walks In The Woods supporters I know of in Ireland, and we had not met yet. Whenever she puts out a date to Walk In The Woods several people turn up, no matter what the weather throws. This was Saturday 6th July and the focus this time was more on Picnic than Walking, in Ravensdale Woods I was heading to Devil's Glen in Co. Wicklow on the Sunday so I thought seeing as I was in the east, and have a rail pass, why not join the Louth people? I met Lisa at the Dundalk Bus Station and we were the only ones using the Dundalk to Newry bus that goes quite close to the forest entrance. On arrival we immediate met up with  Trudy Hoey-Murray who had arrived early. The three of us waited at the car park until 1:30 pm, meet up was 1 pm today ... but nobody else arrived so we took to the forest. Quite an uphill climb, but well worth it for what was to be ahead of us. Being listed as a Picnic Event the thre

I was prompted to write this now after a person from Co. Cork wrote to me suggesting that centres are needed to be created to bring people together, including planning walks in the forests. Have we not had these for hundred of years? I think they are called churches, and then there are the village halls, and urban community halls, and I suppose we can include pubs as it seems churches get more people and more plans together within pub saloons than within the churches and church property. Now people have ideas that they can serve something better in their buildings than from any of these community facilities. I have had all kinds of messages from people about meetings they have in buildings where they 'plan' their walks in the woods. To me that reads as something similar to the situation in Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy where a spaceship crashed onto a new earth like planet. The spaceship was full of bank managers and sanitation inspectors who held a stream of m

This is a forest I have been eager to visit for a long time. It is known as being here on the banks of Lough Ree in Co. Roscommon for over 7000 years, making it one of the most ancient post ice-age forests in Ireland. I was hoping to get a peek at some Irish Pines, a scarce tree, and some Elms that had not been affected by the Dutch Elm disease that spread through the 70s and 80s. Unfortunately, I saw neither but what we did find was fascinating. So lets go walking  ... As with many of these Sunday walks, this year, it had been a misty drizzling morning but the afternoon broke into warm summery sunshine. There was a breeze and this kept potential midges away. Sadly, only 5 of us together on this walk and only two of us residents of Co. Roscommon, others being from counties Sligo and Leitrim. Indeed I received the usual run of messages about weather concerns and did not think we were doing the walk today. As usual we did the walk and love it :-) I was expecting a network of