Tá deireadh na gcoillte ar lár;
níl trácht ar Chill Chais ná ar a teaghlach
is ní bainfear a cling go bráth.
With the last of the woods laid low?
There's no talk of Kilcash or its household
And its bell will be struck no more.
You may have seen where the March Mountain Bike O-event at Clonmore North, Cahir, Co. Tipperary had to be abandoned because Sudden Oak Death has been found in forests in the area. Appropriately enough, the Lament for Kilcash, on the slopes of Slievenamon, ostensibly deals with deforestation in the same area in an earlier era, though really referring to the decline of the Butlers, one of the old noble families of Munster.
Curiously, the disease in Ireland seems to affect Japanese larch, beech and Noble fir trees rather than oak, but it is caused by phytophthora ramorum, a disease related to potato blight, a fungal plant disease of which Irish people will be very aware for historical reasons.
The disease has been found in forests in Northern Ireland and has also had an impact on orienteering there. One problem with the disease is diagnosis: as it affects the larch, which loses its leaves in the winter even though it's a conifer, it is not until the spring that the disease shows up when the tree fails to grow. Signs of ooozing sap and obvious wounds on the trees are also an indication that the disease has struck.
The disease is spread by wind and rain and trees which are close to laurel thickets seem to be particularly at risk. Previously it has affected rhododendrons rather than larch.
Nobody seems to know what to do to deal with it. One drastic solution is to fell the affected forest; another is to ban public access, either all together or to restrict people to roads: either of these could have a major effect on orienteering - remember foot and mouth disease in 2001?
Read what The Irish Times had to report on the disease last August here. Visit Suddenoakdeath.org here.
On 31st March 2011 the Department of Agriculture issued this press release: