Seeds of Inspiration
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What inspired John McKeon to start collecting native tree seeds?
And we're going to end with trees because for a quarter of a century, John McKeown has been collecting seeds from the trees and hedgerows around his home near Castle Blaney in Monaghan. The 75-year-old retired agricultural advisor has used them to grow more than 20 species of native tree, among them oak, holly, hazel, rowan and crabapple. Well, his work is now at the heart of Seeds of Inspiration, a project from the Irish Wildlife Trust and the Monaghan Biodiversity Office. It includes a feature-length documentary, along with publications which show us all how to grow native trees from seeds and cuttings. Well, Della Kilroy went to meet John to find out how growing native trees became his life's work.
Okay, we're walking up on a fisherman's walk now along the shores of Lough Mucknow, Castle Blaney and this is an area where I collect seeds occasionally. So we'll just open this gate, keeps the stock under control.
How would you describe the view here now?
It's very picturesque. Lough Mucknow is a very, very large lake. And I, fortunately enough, live literally on the shores of it. And we see the cormorants out sunning themselves.
You can see four there flying. Yes. And we're approaching a more wooded area now.
Well, it's excellent. If we just stand for a moment and look around, we see a hazel coppice here, and that's where I collect a lot of the hazelnuts. Then there's a ditch up in the distance there, a white thorn ditch and crabapples. and over a bit further there's a corner of Blackthorn and of course I collect the sloughs there and there's some on the high ground there, there's some oak trees in the distance and I get the acorns there.
Talk me through the seed collection process.
yeah well if we go down a little bit now in actual fact hazel collection harvest time has arrived and we will see them now you identify a hazel tree and have a look around here on the ground and we'll see some hazelnuts but i see some shells in actual fact the squirrels have been out and about and have taken away some of them so here we are here now there's plenty of them there just lying on the ground and then the slows probably wouldn't be ripe for another while.
Tell me about your journey. Why did you begin collecting seeds?
I grew up in the countryside near Ballinalee County, Longford, and a small mixed farm there. We were literally self-sufficient. I went on to college then, studied agricultural science, and I happened to be in the townland of Barley Hill, an area between Carrick Macross and Kingscourt, on the borders of Monaghan and Meath, And while up there, I saw gardens and fields of white thorns growing. And I was amazed at that coming from the Midlands, I'd never seen it before. And then it was only a minor step from growing vegetables and that to growing trees.
You've spent 25 years propagating native trees, but as an agricultural advisor, this wasn't akin to some of the advice that you were giving out.
Very true indeed, yes, and I don't mind saying that at this stage. It was the perception at the time, remove the hedges, fill in the shucks, then just plant ryegrass, monoculture ryegrass, and do away with all the old meadows, whereas we should have left things at a better level. Now, eventually, the light has dawned on us that the corn creek, the curlew, and the cuckoo, the sounds of my childhood, they were all gone, so... finally it dawned on me that we had gone too far and it was time to pull back and try and increase biodiversity again. But I'm long enough in the toot to quote old sayings, and there's a great one in this, and so true, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So I think you know what that means.
In other words, we have to put our good intentions into action, otherwise there are really no addition. So that's my approach now.
For you, being in nature, collecting and growing trees from seed, what does it mean to you to do that?
Well, some people might say you'll be on your own and you'll be lonely and this, that. Not at all.
How does John identify and harvest seeds during his walks around Lough Muckno?
I mean, I quote Lord Byron when he said, For tis in solitude we are least alone.
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