Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre

A Forest Sounds Like a Ship at Sea:

Heart of Oak

Day 3: Remote Residency at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen, Ireland, 7/18/22 to 8/13/22, Maria Driscoll McMahon checking in from New York State

"Angel Oak," Charleston, South Carolina, Spring 2022

Heart of oak are our ships,

Heart of oak are our men:

We are always ready;

Steady, boys, steady...

David Garrick, 1759

The Wisdom of Trees by Jane Gifford (goodreads.com)

A question I have been entertaining of late is If you were a tree what would you be?

Although the question may sound as if it had been designed by a hacker to steal identities, Richard Powers must have asked this question of his characters in his book, The Overstory, because he assigned various trees to many of them. For example, there is “Doug Pavlicek, who becomes “Doug-fir;” Mimi Ma is “Mullberry;” Adam Appich is “Maple;” and Olivia earns the moniker, “Maidenhair.”

He named some of the characters based upon trees that happened to be growing where the characters lived. In other cases, though, the characteristics of the trees are descriptive of the people, too.

Since I am asking a similar question of the very real characters in my own non-fictitious story, beginning with Cornelius, it is important to know what the habitats were like where my ancestors lived, both in Ireland, and in mid-19th century Pennsylvania.

I have already sought the expertise of people who have provided me with some insights. Dan Rhodes, Bradford County Conservation District Education Coordinator, for instance, has been extremely helpful in painting a picture of the mid-19th century Ridgebury, Pennsylvania landscape. Upon his arrival, Cornelius would have been confronted with the aforementioned "unbroken virgin wilderness" which he promptly "commenced to 'clear.'" According to Dan, it would have consisted of hemlocks, white pines, chestnuts, oaks, hickories, elms, maples - with several others...in various densities - but most likely he would have been cutting a hemlock, pine, and chestnut dominated forest.

A conversation with naturalist, Richard Gulyas, confirmed Rhodes' assertions and also added that the virgin "old growth" forests Cornelius would have encountered (and cleared) would have included up to a foot of leaf litter. Earthworms brought from Europe, however, served in its decomposition and within 100 years, the soil composition would be forever changed, exacerbating the rise of fungi which would infect many species of trees, including the great American Chestnut. More on that in the next blog post.

From my own google-searches seeking understanding of mid-19th century Southern Irish habitats, I sense that, in addition to many species of trees not found in Ridgebury, oak trees comprised many of the woodlands in West Cork such as in Glengariff Woods and the mystical, submerged oak forest, The Gearagh. I still have much more research to do, however, and would love to be directed to sources of further information.

To learn about the Irish Settlement of Ridgebury, Pa., I am working with the historians at the Bradford County Historical Society Museum and Research Center: Library Clerk, Denise Golden; Volunteer, Donna Pelton; Director, Matt Carl; and the historian who has written much about the Irish of Bradford County, Henry Farley. I just spoke with Henry last night who told me all the residents of the Irish Settlement - the Driscolls, the Sullivans, the Donovans, etc. (the tombstones at "Our Lady of Perpetual Help" cemetery read like the storefronts I remember in Skibbereen!) hailed from Skibbereen and Clonakilty! With those words, the question "From where in Cork did my ancestors hail?" was solved. I plan also to resume consultations with the historians and geneaologists, Terri Kearney and Margaret Murphy, at the Skibbereen Heritage Center In Ireland.

I will provide more details about the Irish in future posts!

So, if Cornelius O'Driscoll were a tree, what would he be?

Asking the question of oneself is hard enough. It would seem to entail harboring heaps of knowledge about trees (I don't) and - perhaps, even more challenging - something about oneself (a work in progress!).

But to ask it of people, long dead, with little more than a few census records or words of description to provide insight into personalities, character traits – even physical appearances - seems like an a fool’s errand.

And yet I persist!

Using what I know thus far of Cornelius O'Driscoll, one might determine he would have been an oak tree based solely on the species of trees common to both Ridgebury, Pa. and County Cork, Ireland.

But I am much more interested in matching the deeper characteristics of trees with what I know (and what I suspect) about my ancestors and, perhaps, the Irish in general. I begin with Cornelius, because he was not only the first of my own ancestors to arrive in Ridgebury, but he was the first of the Irish to arrive in what would be known as "The Irish Settlement."

Fortunately, there are books, internet resources, and - best of all - people all around me who know A LOT about natural science and history who can fill in the gaps!

Of course, this is foreshadowing my own intention to indulge the anthropomorphism of trees (and perhaps other flora and fauna) via drawing and animation in my own work. Scroll down to see just a few samples of many art historical precedents!