Pots Landing

Sometime in the 1970s Coillte, the semi-state forestry firm, acquired one of the old steadings in the hills above us and planted it all with Sitka spruce Picea sitchensisis. By the time we arrived ~20 years later the forest formed a forbidding dark green cliff to the East of the rough track which served as the main access to Mt Leinster and other local peaks. For reasons, Coillte had excluded the ruined farmhouse and yard from the deer-fence enclosure of the forest. Notwithstanding the cliff, that farmstead was, if not a destination, at least a way-station on a longer trek; perhaps especially for small people. Storyrock was another (off-piste) picnicplatz for Dau.I and her sister..Sometime in the 00s, a hillwalking family suffered a tragic loss and their friends-and-relations planted a tree to commemorate one whose tiny legs would never again give out and demand rest at the ruin on the edge of the forest. Mountain ash = caorthann = rowan = Sorbus aucuparia was a pretty good choice,…