The Beatles broke up – and all of them released a solo album
Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix both died of drug overdoses, both aged just 27 years old
Maya Angelou wrote ‘I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings’
Rhodesia won independence from Britain, was renamed Zimbabwe
An explosion on board Apollo 13 risked the lives of three men
Ireland’s Catholic Bishops lifted the ban on Catholics enrolling and attending courses in Trinity College
Anti-Apartheid protestors held demonstrations against the South African rugby team as they played Ireland in Lansdowne Road
The Brazil team – perhaps the greatest soccer squad ever to play the game – won the World Cup, beating Italy 4-1 in the final
Cork and Kerry won the All-Ireland Hurling and Football Titles respectively
Charles J Haughey was sacked as Minister for Finance after the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, accuses him of involvement in importing arms for Republican paramilitaries in the North
Ash timber is hard, tough and very hard-wearing, with a coarse open grain. The light colour and attractive grain of ash wood make it popular in modern furniture such as chairs, dining tables, doors and flooring.
Ash is the only wood used for the manufacture of hurleys, used in hurling. Hurleys are manufactured from the butt log (the bottom 1.5m of the tree trunk). Unfortunately, due to the lack of available ash in Ireland, over 75% of the timber needed to produce the 350,000 hurleys required for the game annually must be imported, mostly from eastern European countries. Because of its high flexibility, shock-resistance and resistance to splitting, Ash wood is also used for tennis rackets and snooker cues, as well as being used in the handles of tools like hammers, and for making walking sticks.
As part of my project I went to visit my own hurley maker, Tom O’Donoghue, who kindly permitted me to film his work for the benefit of the project.
In the following videos he also outlines some salient points about the use of ash and how hurls are made. It makes for very interesting viewing, so have a look!
Modern hurley making falls into two categories: production by means of a lathe, a template and ancillary electric equipment or alternatively by hand with the assistance of band saw and an electric sander. A noteworthy aspect of the art of modern hurley making is the distance that hurlers travel to secure hurleys from their favourite manufacturers with defined special features.
In l995, the profit margin on a hurley was £4/€5. Today, a hurley maker is extremely lucky to end up with a profit of €4 on a hurley. It is reasonable to assume that a hurley maker can produce on average one hundred finished hurleys in a forty hour week; this works out a gross weekly income of €400.00. It is apparent that the modern hurley making sector is in urgent need of reform to achieve long term sustainability. It may once again take the threat of the manufacture of a synthetic hurley to highlight the precarious and haphazard nature of producing hurleys, which are used in what is unmistakably the world’s greatest, most skilful and most exciting field game.
The bark of the Ash tree is smooth and pale grey on young trees, but becoming thick and vertically fissured on older trees.
The bark can be home to many different types of creatures, mostly beetles – including the Bark Beetle (pictured), thousands of which can live in any individual tree.
Of course, the rest of the tree can play home to lots more creatures. Jenkinstown Wood, because of its density and variety of trees in it, is home to many common grey squirrels, as well as countless birds including sparrows, crows, magpies, finches, bluebirds and even robins.
Throughout history all over the world, the Ash tree has many myths and folklore attached to it. The difference in some of the stories depending on their origin is a real testament to how popular and frequently the Ash has become throughout the world.
Ancient Irish legend said that plants and crops grown in the shadow of an Ash would be damaged by the sheer absence of sunlight that would fall on them! In Cheshire, Ash wood was used to get rid of warts or rickets.
Ash was known as ‘the Widow Maker’ in Sussex because its heaviness and propensity to fall at random often meant it likely to kill anyone who might be underneath one as it fell.
The bark of some Asian ash trees are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine to treat diarrhea, dysentery, and vaginal discharge. It is also good for the eyes where there is symptoms of redness, swelling, and pain. The dosage is 6-12 grams.
You might wonder what poetry has to do with my tree or with this project, but the famous poem The Last Rose of Summer was written in Jenkinstown Wood by Thomas Moore in 1805 while staying at Jenkinstown Park. The piece is probably better known as a song, having been set to music by many composers including Sir John Stevenson (who wrote the most widely-known version), Felix Mendelssohn, Friedrich von Flotow and Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst. Indeed, the poem is so well-known that it was even immortalised in James Joyce’s Ulysses.
Stevenson’s setting has been recorded by Clannad, Sarah Brightman, Charlotte Church and the Irish Tenors, and Chloë Agnew (daughter of Twink). In this version, from Celtic Woman, it is sung by Méav Ní Mhaolchatha and New Zealander Hayley Westenra.
Take a moment to enjoy a beautiful work, composed where the shadows of my adopted tree now fall…
The Beatles broke up – and all of them released a solo album
The bark of the Ash tree is smooth and pale grey on young trees, but becoming thick and vertically fissured on older trees.