Builder and part-time farmer from Oldcastle, Co. Meath, Paddy Mangan has donated 9,000 saplings nationwide with the help of volunteers, after seeing the wide interest in people looking to grow native trees.
Mangan started planting trees on his own farm about five years ago, as he noticed a lot of ash dieback in the area.
“I’d hate to look back when the ash trees are gone and regret not planting trees 10 or 15 years prior,” he said.
Over the course of the five years, Mangan planted about 3,000 trees in total.
Of course, that’s a lot of planting for one person, so he was sure to receive much needed help from his now six-year-old daughter, Oonagh.
Oonagh planted her first tree at the age of three, and has been “mad for planting” ever since, according to Mangan.
Oonagh, along with Mangan’s other daughter, Cara (aged one) are big contributing factors to why Mangan has began donating trees.
“These kids are our future and it’s all about the next generation. Hopefully we will keep planting native Irish provenance trees so as not to bring any more terrible diseases to affect our great native trees and plants,” he said.
Each year Mangan would donate up to 50 or 60 trees, but it is getting to the point where he doesn’t have any room left on his land.
He said he wants to avoid planting in the middle of fields, as with livestock “it would be too difficult to manage”.
Saplings
He put a post into a native tree group on Facebook on December 15, stating that he would be donating 1,500 trees.
He hoped to garner some interest from the group, but was “shocked” by the amount of respondents.
“I suppose the project just grew legs from there.
“That post was on the Monday, and by the Friday I was down in Wicklow collecting the trees,” he said.
Volunteers came forward to help Mangan. There were about 23 or 24 people to help distribute the trees nationwide.
Since the first distribution, the amount of trees donated has increased to 9,000.
The majority of the native trees came from Coillte and None-So-Hardy in Shillelagh, Co. Wicklow.
10 different variations were distributed: Oak, mountain ash, beech, white thorn, black thorn, crab apple, scots pine, birch, alder, and hazel.
Future plans
The Meath man said that going forward he would like to increase the distribution levels.
He plans to give away 35,000 trees a year, which would mean 250,000 Irish native trees planted across Ireland by 2030.
Mangan said that the normal time for planting is between November and the end of March, so he hopes to get another 15,000 planted before the end of the season.
Between building, farming and family life, Mangan is kept busy. He is also in the process of completing two higher diploma courses.
One focusing on traditional building renovation and the other on retrofitting existing buildings.
“If you want something done, then ask a busy person to do it,” he said.
Mangan said that “nobody has an excuse”.
“It only takes a minute to put a tree into the ground. If you only have a tiny back garden, or if you have 100 acres, there’s loads of places that you can plant a tree.
“Even if you live in an apartment, there’s plenty of places that would be happy to see the help from volunteers,” he added.
“There’s only so much the government can do. The people on the ground have to hold their head up and do something about the climate.
“If you’re three, or if you’re 83, you can plant a tree,” he said.
While Mangan’s tree donations are completely profit free, he said that in the future he would be open to sponsorship or donations from anybody receiving trees.
Mangan can be contacted via his free tree page online.