On weekends recently, fathers have been seen busily throwing sticks up into the horse-chestnut trees along the main route through the Phoenix Park in Dublin, while their male offspring wait for the conkers to fall. Is it still the autumn sport of the young male? The evidence from the park is that it has not, at any rate, died out. Some of the great champion conkers came about after baking in fat in a slow oven. Other players had their special secrets. In pre-radio, pre-TV days, it seems to have been almost universal practice among the 10 to 12-year-old male group. The chestnuts flowering in the spring in the same park are always worth going to see if you are a Dubliner.
But the tree can only be seen to advantage in such a setting. It needs space. It chokes a modern garden. So what else is it good for? Charles Nelson in Trees of Ireland tells us that, Turkish in origin, this tree probably did not reach Ireland until the 17th century. The wood is not of first-class quality - "useless even as firewood" - though it has been used as cheap veneer and for toys and paintbrush handles. Horses usually refuse to eat conkers, he says, though the Turks were supposed to use them to cure horses of coughs. Pigs won't eat them, some sources claim, though sheep and deer are not so choosey.
Horse-chestnuts are definitely not for human consumption. In eastern countries, when processed by soaking in lime-water to take away the bitter flavour, they can be ground to a meal and mixed with the ordinary animal provender. This, according to A Modern Herbal by Mrs M. Grieve, a massive Penguin book. And she informs us that the bark of the tree has been used medicinally. Strips of it, taken in spring and dried, may be used in an infusion "in intermittent fevers" and also applied to external ulcers. And there is a reference to the fruits being used for rheumatism, neuralgia and rectal complaints.
But what of the sweet chestnut? Charles Nelson, again, gives a list of "recorded trees" - i.e., of some importance. But do many ripen fully? Sweet chestnuts sold here would perhaps be from France. In that country chestnuts were into the 19th century used for "winter bread", the basis of peasant winter diet. Today the height of confectioner's art, available in Ireland as an import, is the marron glace. Or you may get tins or jars of chestnut puree. In France, of course, the roasting of chestnuts over a brazier by street vendors is common - and elsewhere.