About the Tree

This celebrated native tree has a place in the Irish legends as the most venerated of species, featuring regularly in the Irish sagas as magical shelters for heroes and heroines.

Tree-ring evidence suggests they can live for anything up to 300 years.

Ash grows abundantly on Lisnavagh's lime rich soils and provides a beautiful ground flora of bluebells, primroses, lords-and-ladies and ferns.

Ash naturally regenerates easily in woodlands, hedgerows, bare ground... just about everywhere.

About the Wood

Ash is a light coloured and relatively flexible timber.

Because it can also absorb shocks quite well, the timber is used in the manufacture of tool handles, hockey sticks, cart-wheels and, famously, for the caman or hurley - the stick used in the game of hurling (often referred to as the "Clash of the Ash"). Ash is also used for furniture and in boat building.

Ash has a fair suitability for carving - it can be inclined to be tough.

The sample in the picture is an interesting one, in that it shows several possible features found in ash, and all in one piece of wood!

(Click the picture to get an enlarged version).

In older trees, the heartwood can have a relatively dark staining which is called "Olive Ash".