Did you ever wonder, as you sped along the new dual-carriageways and motorways and admired, out of the corner of your eye, the tightly-packed birch or whatever on the steep wayside banks, what will happen when they grow much higher? Will they be topped? Or replaced? And at what stage is it possible that they might endanger life at 70-milesper-hour by falling onto the road? Much less risk of falling trees, you might think, than is to be met on many main and side roads. And you will have idly wondered who is responsible for the planting. The county? The contractors? Or perhaps some central authority?
You can learn a lot about it and read some pungent criticism of the planting policy in the Irish Arts Review for 1998, a handsome and stimulating publication. It is in the editorial, which starts with some faint praise of the golden daffodils seen after arriving at Dublin Airport but then goes on to expect, a month later "the traditional blossom of the may". The daffodils, it runs "are only one example - but the most obvious one - of the inappropriateness of most of the planting along Ireland's recent roads."
A bit hard, that, but read on. First, it makes clear that the National Roads Authority, a semi-state body dating from 1994, co-ordinates the planning and construction of the new road system, but it is the individual county councils who design and build the roads, including landscaping and planting the verges. There are no regulations as to what is to be planted, only guidelines, which, according to the editorial, "while using native species such as alder and birch, focus more on low maintenance, fast growth, road safety, and noise abatement than on the creation of the traditional Irish hedgerow of hawthorn, blackthorn, gorse, bramble, elder, crab apple, old man's beard, and honeysuckle."
The editorial goes on to point out that this shows little attention is being paid to providing a habitat for wild life, which likes diversity in size and density, for example, "and does not like the recent road planting." As to flowers on the grassy verges, wildflowers have as little chance of surviving the frequent mowing "as a thrush has of building her nest in a clump of daffodils." It needs only one county council - or the NRA to take the lead, says the leaderwriter. A good clamour should arise now. We will come back to it.