Written by Ciaran Vipond on Nov 27, 2019 | 2 Comments
Trees are rooted in Irish culture. And so we are thrilled to announce a new initiative partnering with Trees on the Land.
Starting in July 2019, for every order placed at myirishjeweler.com, we will support Trees on the Land to plant native Irish trees here in Ireland.
Our ancestors placed immense value in the food, shelter, and materials that trees provided. The Tree of Life, or the Crann Bethadh, was revered by the ancient Irish.
Indeed Ogham, the first alphabet of the Irish language, is known as the tree language. Each letter is named for a type of tree. Different combinations of slashes or ‘branches’ represent each letter on a vertical central stem, so words end up looking a bit like trees too! Hundreds of ogham inscriptions survive on stones dotted around the Irish landscape.
Irish legends have tales of sacred trees that confer blessings on people in need. Even today, on a drive through the Irish countryside you might see a tree adorned with ribbons, medals and messages from people hoping for knowledge, love, health, or prosperity.
But our ancient ancestors would not recognise Ireland today. A combination of changing climate, the Plantations of Ireland, population growth, and industrialisation caused forest cover to drop from around 80% to a low of 1% in the 1800’s! With management, Irish forests are now close to 11%. But Ireland remains severely deforested. Particularly compared to the more than 30% forest cover of our neighbours in Europe, USA or Canada.
Trees on the Land is working to restore Ireland's lost woodland and tree cover by planting native trees in Ireland. Their annual tree planting event each February sees people across the island plant native Irish trees like alder, birch, blackthorn, crab apple, hawthorn, hazel, oak, scots pine and rowan.
They have planted over one million trees and are working on planting the next million. My Irish Jeweler are delighted to do our bit to achieve this fantastic goal.So starting July 2019, with your support, My Irish Jeweler aims to plant over 5,000 trees in February 2020.
So now, as well as getting your own piece of Ireland with your carefully crafted Irish Jewelry, you are also helping to keep our lovely Ireland green, returning the trees treasured by our ancestors to the land.
The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.
And we're very proud to say that we did reach our goal to plant over 5,000 trees by February 2020. Check out the video below of our team day out to Ardeo Sport Grounds to see first hand how the trees are planted!
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Ciaran Vipond
My Irish Jeweler
Born in Co. Antrim and reared in Dublin, I was fascinated with Gaelic culture from an early age. I suppose it's not surprising given my mother inherited a grá for the Irish language from my grandfather, an Irish school headmaster. And that grá continues! My brother and sister are now Gaelic teachers here in Ireland, my niece is an award winning Irish dancer, and I proudly work to share Irish culture through our Irish and Celtic Jewelry at My Irish Jeweler!
I love researching and reading about the history of Irish design. It's at the core of what we do here at My Irish Jeweler. I find much of it so interesting that I have to share what I find. I hope you enjoy it!
Thank you, Linnie, for not only taking the time to read but to share your thoughts! It certainly sounds like you are very in touch with your natural side and have named a handful of beautiful species. It's wonderful to read that you are doing the important and much appreciated work of planting trees for future generations!
Ask Gemma
Thank you for a lovely blog :) Your jewellery is beautiful. :)
I found you by chance when looking up Ailm as I am creating my own Tree Ogham.. Sadly, where I am in the subtropics many beautiful traditional Ogham trees can't grow.. Some that I met in a much too brief visit to Ireland I fell in love with, but they won't survive here .. Castleruddery Stone Circle was my favourite of all the stone circles we met in the northern hemisphere.. there was something so special there.. with Avebury and a couple of other also very beautiful and powerful circles moving me deeply, but I can't plant a beautiful Luis here.. it would not survive..
In the spirit of my Irish ancestors I, too, have a deep love of trees and have planted my own now self-seeding local species rainforest. Planting trees is one of the most beautiful and personal things we can do to honour this beautiful Earth.