GAELS - Forest People.

THIS episode will follow Irish trees through time from:

The temperate rainforest which existed before humanity's arrival on the island, to the 1% of tree cover that remains in our wake.

FROM the celts who venerated trees, to the Normans who cut them down liberally and the continued negligence by the Free State all the way to the current practice of forestry in Ireland today.

INTERESTINGLY, language can be used to plot the changing relationship between humankind and forests here in Ireland.

FROM Ogham, a language based on the natural world around us, to the present day where the word 'forest' can prove harmful in its vaguity.

PLUS, learn a possible scientific reason why the hawthorn (or fairy tree) might be such a feared bush.