Documentaries on KCLR

Part 4 of 4.

Former Kilkenny captain and five-time All-Ireland senior hurling winner with the Cats, Michael Fennelly takes a walk back through one of the biggest games in Kilkenny's coloured hurling history - the 1967 All-Ireland senior hurling championship final, the day the black and amber tide turned as Kilkenny overcame Tipperary in what would prove to be a watershed moment for the county. 

Part 3 of 4.

Former Kilkenny captain and five-time All-Ireland senior hurling winner with the Cats, Michael Fennelly takes a walk back through one of the biggest game in Kilkenny's coloured hurling history - the 1967 All-Ireland senior hurling championship final, the day the black and amber tide turned as Kilkenny overcame Tipperary in what would prove to be a watershed moment for the county. 

Part 2 of 4.

Former Kilkenny captain and five-time All-Ireland senior hurling winner with the Cats, Michael Fennelly takes a walk back through one of the biggest games in Kilkenny's coloured hurling history - the 1967 All-Ireland senior hurling championship final, the day the black and amber tide turned as Kilkenny overcame Tipperary in what would prove to be a watershed moment for the county. 

In this first part of a four-part series, we'll hear from former Kilkenny GAA chairman Ned Quinn, hurlers Eddie Keher, Jim Treacy, and Tom Walsh along with sports writer Enda McEvoy on the buildup to 3 September 1967, the day that Kilkenny would beat Tipperary in an All-Ireland senior hurling final for the first time in 45 years.

There's no doubt about it, trees give us many things and over the course of this programme series we have heard about many of these benefits.  But probably one of the nicest things about trees is how they give us an avenue for our creativity, and they provide a beautiful space in which to walk.  

Mick Power is National Estates Manager with Coillte with responsibility for biotic risk and we meet him in Castlemorris Woodlands just outside Kilkenny.  Castlemorris is an old landed gentry estate which came into the hands of the state back in the 1920s.  There has always been a woodland area on the 600-acre site and the trees that we see today are third generation trees.  It contains a mix of species and is managed under a continuous cover management system.  Mixtures of different types of trees are best, according to Mick, who advocates the old adage of planting the right tree in the right place.  

Coillte's open forest policy is not just of benefit to them from a safety point of view, but it delivers a wonderful amenity to the public as well.  Their commercial activities support the development of woodlands like Castlemorris which have mainly been set aside for biodiversity and recreation.  Mick has borne witness to many changes over the 40 odd years working with trees but one of the most recent and positive developments has been people's increased engagement with nature and trees.  From Mick's point of view, there is nothing as nice as hanging out with trees.

Another man who likes to spend time with wood rather than woodlands in Kilkenny woodturner Liam Kirwan. He makes everything from earrings, to bowls and uses many different types of local wood in his projects.  For example, he makes pens from 32 different Irish timbers. Does anyone remember the lovely Beech tree that used to grow in the Kilkenny Castle park?  It was over 200 years old when it fell in a storm and its timber was distributed to craftspeople from which they could make things.  Liam makes pens from this wood, but they are very popular, and he doesn't have that much left now.  

Wood from the fruit trees can look the same but others are very distinctive like ash with its pale colour and London Plane with its herring bone effect.  Always cut with the grain, use dry wood and give the object the respect of a good finish is what makes a well-turned piece - that and the patience of the turner.   They are a patient people- like trees.  

We all love nature but sometimes we don't consider just how much we are damaging it through our food and economic systems.  In this programme Maura Brennan who runs the Acorn Project in Kilkenny is trying to repair this contradiction by running workshops that engage communities to care for and grow trees in their locality.

Through funding from the Woodland Support Project, the Acorn Project has collaborated with Irish Seed Savers who are running workshops to train community seed savers in how to extract seeds and get them to germinate; the seeds having been already collected in their locality during the autumn.  These seeds will then be planted in tree nurseries - wooden boxes - in parks or green areas, until the saplings grow to about two years old when they will then be planted out into areas designated by the community.  Jeremy Turkington is Orchard Manager at Seedsavers who takes the groups through the processes in stratifying the seeds.

Monica meets Maura in the Millenium Park, Freshford where an Acorn Box containing young saplings are growing in beautiful leaf mould compost.  Using leaf mould to grow trees makes complete sense to workshop facilitator Donal O'Leary who runs Waste Down.  Waste Down provides training in composting and they also sell compost too.  He came to Durrow last autumn to train the tidy towns committee on how to compost leaf mould in their locality.  It's always best to leave the leaves on the ground for wildlife but, if you're removing leaves from drains or to make car-parking space, then putting them in a heap afterwards to compost in a great way of getting the best use out of them. 

The Acorn Project runs forest school for children to get them out in the woods playing and learning about trees and the uses of trees. This according to Maura, will benefit them by cultivating a deeper connection to nature as they grow up into adults.  An exciting new project which has just begun is called Waking the Seeds and involves 20 women who are exploring their connections to the woods through art.  The workshop is a  co-facilitation between Maura and Kilkenny based artist Rachel Burke.

Restoring our forests acorn by acorn is the motto for Maura who believes that little things can achieve a lot.

Engineered wood, is made, in the case of Orientated Strand Board, by taking the thinnings from softwood conifer plantations and putting it through a process whereby it is transformed into board that is as hard as any hardwood timber.

This process takes place at Smartply located in Belview Co Kilkenny where Monica meets Neil Foot.  She is taken on a tour around the plant beginning first in the log yard where stacks upon stacks of logs have been delivered from the plantations and are ready to be processed.  The first step is debarking, and the bark is used in heating processes further down the line.  Then the stripped log is taken through a very noisy process of 'waferising', where it's torn up into wafers or large flakes.  These large flakes are then dried, misted with adhesive resin, and laid down in specially orientated layers to form a woody mat.  This woody mat is then pressed and a board - Orientated Strand Board (OSB) is made.

It sounds easy, but it's a complex product.  Between both Smartply and it's sister company Medite, which makes MDF, 90 truckloads of tree logs come in and 50 truckloads of product leave each week.  360 people are employed between both sites, and they are the largest timber processer in the country.  They are owned by Coillte who took over the running of Smartply in 2002 when the original owners, Louisiana Pacific left Ireland.

According to David Murray, OSB and other engineered wood products are well positioned to fill the need for more sustainable building construction products.  Ireland needs to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, and wood, which acts as a store of carbon is a good material to use in this respect. It's also very warm and when well insulated, can reduce heat loss from houses.  Smartply produce an array of different OSB products, some are flame retardant others are made to be specifically airtight, they can be used indoors and outdoors, under the ceiling or below the floor and of course are the material of choice in timber frame houses.  

Only 1 in 5 houses in Ireland are timber frame.  This is low compared to the likes of Scotland where 80% of the houses are timber frame.  Education in the versatility of engineered wood products may help to increase this, along with a change in policy.  Why is this important to do?  Because every little bit we do will go towards reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and keeping global warming to below 1.5 C and Trees are a very important part of that process.  

First to the annual RDS Forest and Woodland Awards which Andrew O'Carroll won in 2018 in the Teagasc Farm Forestry Award category.  One of the secrets to his success, he believes, is that he planted the right tree in the right place.  Ballygorteen in on the side of the Castlecomer Plateau and the soil isn't very productive for grassland but it's great for growing Sitka Spruce.  Sitka Spruce to all intents and purposes is like any other crop except for the fact that it has a 30-year growth cycle.  It is used in the timber industry in Ireland and it's great for hoovering up the carbon dioxide in the air - carbon dioxide being a greenhouse gas whose presence in the atmosphere is contributing to global warming.  

In fact, Michael Somers says that is the third best tree in the world for sequestering carbon.  Michael has brought his hypsometer with him to the plantation which is an instrument that's used to measure the height of trees. Andrew's trees are doing really well, and they need thinning.

A license is needed to thin or clear fell a plantation like Andrew's.  According to a recent report the Department of Agriculture is currently processing 100 such licenses a week but still there is a bit of a backlog which Andrew believes could, and may well be, addressed through reforms of the licencing process.  In meantime though, with his IFA hat on, Andrew is anxious that licences for small private forestry owners are not relegated to the bottom of the pile in favour of the bigger Coillte plantations.  It's the small private landowners after all who are key to the development of the forestry industry in Ireland

Another potential key to the forestry industry, particularly in relation to carbon, is the potential carbon sink of Ireland's hedgerows which up to now have not been included in the nation's carbon accounts.  According to Andrew including hedgerow cover alone in Carlow and Kilkenny would double the percentage of land currently under forestry - and who knows how much carbon that could be.  A good hedgerow gives Michael Somers great joy, and he believes they need to be cared for depending on their age and type.  

Ash die back is currently decimating the hedgerows in Ireland and it has also had a big impact on forestry owners with ash plantations.  It's tough on them seeing their potential pension pot dissolve in front of their eyes.   There are options that the Department could offer to help their situation says Andrew while adding that he sees great potential in the forestry sector.

Michael also sees great potential in the sector, and great potential for harnessing new markets in the hardwood industry which is still relatively untapped here in Ireland.  And while carbon is important and Sitka Spruce ticks that box, it is also important to keep biodiversity in mind too when considering planting options.  A mixture of trees is best.  But carbon leads us on to carbon credits and carbon trading and that grey area that will in time be sorted.  In the meantime, it's the right tree, in the right place, its carbon, biodiversity, and it's an income stream too.  Get someone like Michael out with the hypsometer is Andrew's appeal to landowners about to clear fell or thin - get the best price for your timber by knowing it's value.  

The JFK Arboretum was conceived as a memorial to honour American President John F Kennedy following his assassination in 1963.  The site at New Ross Co Wexford was picked due to it's proximity to his ancestral homestead and due it's mild climate, diverse soil types and variations in elevation.

Kevin Naughton is head gardener at the arboretum and he takes Monica around the park, stopping at intervals to show the broad ranges of trees that they have in their collection.  The trees are mainly breed from wild seed collections and the arboretum features trees from Asia to Australia, the parts of America and Europe. It's managed by the OPW under the co-ordination of the Botanic Gardens in Dublin and it's five principles of being are as a centre of education, recreation, research, conservation and demonstration.  

There is lots of wildlife and biodiversity at the arboretum which is nurtured and sustained through various practices which include allowing the grasses to grow during the summer months.  

Over the years many storms and the two most recent hurricanes have taken down a lot of trees at the park causing it to close for sometimes months at a time.  These storms are becoming more frequent and could well be indicative of the changes in weather being caused by the warming of our planet.

In fact, climate change is being studied at the Phenological Gardens at the JFK Arboretum.  Kathleen Carroll, has for the past 40 years being recording the dates of the seasonal cycles of the trees.  She has found that spring is coming 2 to 3 weeks earlier than when she first began her data collection.  Will our trees be able to adapt to these changes in climate, and what sort of trees will be best suited to climate in the coming years?

Climate change and habitat loss is having a huge impact on the diversity of conifers around the world.  As part of their conservation role, the JFK Arboretum is taking part in the International Conifer Conservation Project (ICCP).  Gary Mentanko is in charge of this project at the arboretum. He explains that 1/3 of the conifers around the world are under threat and that the arboretum is planting 1,300 threatened conifers over the next year in the hopes that they can save the genetic diversity of these important trees.

The Bunburys have lived at Lisnavagh House for over 300 years.  Their home sits on 600 acres of which 200 acres is woodland, mainly native hardwoods.  

Over the years storms have taken down some of the old trees.  William Bunbury of Lisnavagh, on looking at them being removed to the sawmill and seeing all the tonnes of wood in them, felt that he could add value to them.  Thus, he came up with the concept of Bunbury Boards and Lisnavagh Timber Project.  

Bunbury Boards are chopping boards which are made from the trees that fall in the estate.  The Lisnavagh Timber Project sells planks of hardwood timber for furniture making; they also make the furniture for their customers too.  

Each year William hires a mobile sawmill to come and cut the trees which have fallen due to storms or which have been removed due to ill-health.  He air drys the planks of wood in open sheds until such time as they are ready for the kiln.  When properly dried the timber is then ready to be processed into chopping boards or furniture.  

William also uses the wood as firewood to heat the big house and other cottages on the estate which saves oil and reduces their fuel bill, he also uses some of the wood in new building projects - like the new venue built 5 years ago for weddings or yoga retreats.

William appreciates the trees and the wood they produce and always looks forward to see what the timber will look like once it's milled.