How old is a hedgerow? Meaning one in farming or generally a country setting, rather than urban or suburban. Who cares, if it does its job of keeping animals in and unwanted beings out? Well, in England various claims have been made, such as that one additional species of shrub colonised a hedge every hundred years. Taking a unit of thirty yards of hedge, for example, two species in that stretch would mean an age of some 200 years old, while six species could mean anything over 600 years. Give or take quite a number of years - say a century or more. There are all sorts of provisos, but one shouldn't mock.
Of course, in Ireland, as we know from Dr A. T. Lucas's work Furze, the typical hawthorn hedge is a comparatively new thing. He tells us that in the 18th and early 19th century, in those areas where dry stone walls were not the rule, the typical fence was an earthen bank. And he quotes a tourist of 1790, looking out from the Rock of Cashel: "not a quickset ditch and scarce a single tree in the great horizon before you." And where there was a hedge, it would probably be furze or whins.
Anyway, hedgerows are in the news now, along with the trees, and Crann Leitrim branch has obtained from the Heritage Council a grant to promote hedges; not just as assets to the farming system but as features in the landscape and, of course, as important habitats for wildlife. And, some will add, as sources of good jam and jellymaking fruits such as blackberries, sloes and elderberries. Not to speak of crabapples.
So they will be making a hedge survey - mostly, they think, by school children, though anyone interested can volunteer. And then there will be special days where, for example, hedgelaying, a skill not many of us know anything about will be demonstrated. It involves partially severing the trunk and laying the thorn or tree at an angle. This gets rid of the gap at the bottom, which often comes with growth of a hedge, and the stump will produce new shoots. Further, new growth will rise vertically along the trunk or stem.
On Sunday 21st September you can see for yourself. Meet at the Crann Leitrim Office, Hyde Street, Mohill, Leitrim. And that day is National Heritage Day, so probably many events all around the country to mark it. And shouldn't more of us know about hedge laying or layering? Hedges are knows to some as our linear forests. Not bad.