Donal Hickey: Royals inspire clean-up

Isn’t it amazing how the Government, which keeps telling us it is short of money, can produce cash at the drop of a proverbial royal hat! For certain things.

Donal Hickey: Royals inspire clean-up

By Donal Hickey

Isn’t it amazing how the Government, which keeps telling us it is short of money, can produce cash at the drop of a proverbial royal hat! For certain things.

It took the visit of Britain’s Prince of Wales and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, to get long-awaited maintenance work done in Killarney National Park.

Railings which had been broken for years were quickly repaired and were given a much-needed lick of black paint, while the area around historic Muckross House and gardens received a spruce-up.

Prince Charles should come more often and the welcome was warm last week.

Work done in preparation for the royal visit is also welcome.

A European report last year found the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is chronically underfunded and does not have enough staff to protect important sites and ancient woodlands.

Because of cutbacks, we are told, Killarney National Park has suffered substantial staff reductions and a voluntary group, Meitheal, is helping with work in the park, including rhododendron control.

Given his interest in plants, it was appropriate the green-fingered prince was brought by NPWS district officer Philip Buckley to see an evergreen arbutus wood on his call to Muckross House.

Also known as the ‘strawberry tree’ because of the shape and colour of its red berries, the arbutus is native to parts of Spain, Portugal, Brittany, and south-west Ireland.

Muckross House
Muckross House

Prolific around the Lakes of Killarney, it is also found in Glengarriff, Co Cork. Not quite as tasty as a strawberry, the fruit of the broad-leaved arbutus is used in parts of Portugal to make a strong drink, a bit like poteen.

When Charles’s ancestor, Queen Victoria, visited Killarney in 1861, she was presented with beautiful pieces of crafted furniture, including a desk and cabinet of arbutus wood and a casket of bog oak.

Occasionally, pieces of arbutus furniture from the 19th century come up for auction as antiques, fetching thousands of euro.

As did pieces presented to Queen Victoria, the furniture is usually inlaid with picture postcard landmarks of Killarney, such as Ross Castle and Glena Cottage, and Irish symbols like the shamrock and round towers.

Charles and Camilla, meanwhile, were also treated to Irish music, but the repertoire did not include a Victorian parlour song written by Alfred Perceval Graves, in 1882.

“My love’s an arbutus, by the borders of Lene [Lough Lein, Killarney], so slender and shapely in her girdle of green…’’

You could imagine it sung by Victorians, with piano accompaniment, in the elegant drawing room of Muckross House, where the queen stayed during her four-day visit.

Pity that Charles was not given more time to experience the natural richness of Muckross.

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