O Bonny Portmore I am sorry to see,
such a woeful destruction of your ornament tree.
For it stood on your shore for many's the long day,
till the long boats from Antrim came to float it away.

O Bonny Portmore you shine where you stand,
and the more I think on you the more I think long.
If I had you now as I had once before,
all the Lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.




All the birds in the forest they bitterly weep,
saying, "Where will we shelter or where will we sleep?"
For the Oak and the Ash they are all cutten down.
And the walls of Bonny Portmore are all down to the ground.




O Bonny Portmore you shine where you stand.
And the more I think on you the more I think long.
If I had you now as I had once before,
all the Lords of Old England would not purchase Portmore.







These are lyrics to a traditional song in Ireland. Portmore is a Castle on the shore of Lough Beg. There was a grand tree, The Great Oak of Portmore, which stood on the grounds of that castle.

This issue is nothing new and nothing forgotten. Deforestation is one of the greatest problems facing most of the pristine areas left in this world. We need to learn from past experience what this can lead to. It was not so long ago that Europe was absolutely covered in forest. Constant lumbering caused a massive timber famine in the relatively recent past (a matter of a couple of centuries). The famine affected everyone, and forced changes across the board; in technology, building, heating, culture, wildlife, the environment and much more. This is a problem that will not go away and has far reaching and permanent reprocussions.

Why do we record history and teach it to our children if we have no intention of using that knowledge to learn from our mistakes?

Maintained by Kristin M. Streebel

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