The Trees for the Forest

Between 1766 and 1805, the Dublin Society made grants for planting a total of 55 million trees in Ireland. This was on the back of at least seven parliamentary acts dating back to 1698 which envisaged planting and preserving trees and woods, by encouraging tenant farmers to plant trees and to register them in a county repository.

It was probably the first state afforestation scheme anywhere in the world.

The scheme was required because of the massive demand for timber for ship building, co...