John Millington Synge is remembered again this coming Friday in the lovely, thriving new wood at Oak Glen in Glencree, Co Wicklow. Ivan Yates TD, Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry, is to unveil the "Synge Stone" at OakGlen, in Synge's own walking county. No man can have covered more miles in Wicklow. He ends an essay The People of the Glens with these words: "I wished them good evening and started again on my walk, as I had two mountains to cross." He spent much time around here with Molly Allgood, his love:
"Stretched beneath a hazel bough
Kissed from ear and throat to brow."
And the Minister is unveiling a stone typical of the district - granite - which Tony Carey, chairman of Oak Glen describes as an Ice Age bequest, left at the entrance to Oak Glen by the melting glacier. Just the right place. It bears the inscription "To the Oaks of Glencree" and Synge's lines read:
My arms are round you and I lean
Against you, while the lark
Sings over us, and golden lights, and green
Shadows are on your bark
J.M SYNGE
Oak Glen, as you know, is an offshoot of Crann. For £10 you can have an oak planted for yourself, or a relative, or a friend, or to commemorate a special event. A fine start to life as a christening present. You will get a certificate for the tree and there is a diagram at the wood where you can find out where your tree is growing. Charles Haughey, when Taoiseach, launched it in September 1990. The President elect planted the first tree. Now the scheme, which covers 65 acres, is within sight of being fully subscribed - a few thousand more subscriptions would complete it.
The trees, Tony Carey says, are in some cases up to six feet high. It's a lovely glen. The poet Joseph Campbell lived there, too, and wrote of a man with many possessions who was nevertheless as poor as one who never knew/The treasure of the early dew. The title of the poem is The Gombeen. The address given on the handout, is Cloonwood, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow (four miles from Enniskerry on the Glencree Road). Crann, Coillte, the Synge Summer School and the Synge family contributed towards the cost of the inscription. Friday, November 15th at 11 o'clock.