Cat Crainn

In Irish, a pine marten – such as the one shown on the left – is cat crainn which means literally “cat of the tree” or, less clumsily, “tree cat”. The word for “tree” in the nominative case is crann and the genitive meaning “of the tree” is crainn. They are about the size of a domestic cat. I mention the pine marten partly because a while ago it came up on Bitesize Irish, which is a way I’m trying to add to my meagre vocabulary of Irish words and phrases, and partly because the story of these animals is quite fascinating. Pine martens have existed in Ireland for thousands of years alongside native red squirrels whose habitat is similar. More recently the invasive grey squirrels arrived and bullied their smaller red cousins into decline. Pine martens were also in serious decline because of hunting and deforestation and were critically endangered until recently, when legal protections were introduced. Now the population is growing and they are spreading into new areas. Pine martens are…