at a glance, this is just another commercial spruce plantation- a type of intensive forestry that covers more of Ireland than counties Louth, Carlow, Dublin and Longford put together.
but there's more to this place than initally meets the eye... (thread)

100s of old oak stumps are scattered through the dense spruce, and some of them are huge (the biggest i came across had a diameter of about 1.5m ).

this was previously an ancient oakwood...

a few bits of the original woodland still survive, and they are INCREDIBLE. just look at that carpet of spring wildflowers! if i were a bee

that bird song too, wow

ok let's contrast:
the pic on the left is what Ireland's natural, ancient woods can look like. notice the complex structure and diversity- tall trees, small trees, shrubs, wildflowers.
the pic on the right is what most of our forests look like. simple structure and low diversity

so what actually happened here? well, most of this wood was bought by the Forest Service (NI) in the 20th century, and presumably they felled the oaks and replanted with spruce (spruce doesn't grow naturally in Ireland). this was driven by productivity focused forestry policy...

...the irony is that its not practical to actually harvest this spruce crop- site access is too difficult. so public money was used to destroy most of the ancient oakwood for literally no reason at all

the good news is that we've since worked out how to restore ancient woods that disappeared under plantations. the original vegetation starts to come back if you slowly fell the spruce (the old wdland soils are still the same, and things recolonise from the seed bank or refuges)

we need to demand @ForestServiceNI and @coilltenews restore all of their ancient woodland sites. we're living through an extinction crisis, and making sure the last remnants of our richest habitats are brought back to life is not too much to ask.

finally, this wood is called Cah Wood. almost no one knows that it exists, and that rly bothers me. it should be one of our most treasured places, being restored by ecologists and foresters whilst historians unlock its secrets. need a step change in how we value our ancient woods