I love forests. Real forests I mean, not forest plantations which are just endless rows of trees planted for human profit. A real forest is more than a bunch of trees, it is an ecosystem with countless interacting lifeforms. And a real forest has a specific character, you might even call it a personality. You could say a forest is a life form beyond an individual. Now this may sound weird to some people, but so are we in a way. We are full of bacteria and without them we will die. In fact we have more bacterial DNA in our bodies than we have human DNA; we are also a cooperation of lifeforms. A forest is just a cooperation on a bigger scale and much more complex.
Now this forest – Knocksink wood – has an interesting personalty. It is not a very big forest, but it feels magic. This is what Ireland might have looked liked before the English cut it all down to build ships and conquer the world.
What a forest, I walked around with an open mouth. No tourist to be seen, but what a forest. It is lush and green and bursting with life, there’s something growing everywhere, ferns, moss, blackberries, trees, forest.
Glencullen river is the backbone of the forest. It gives the forest a moist atmosphere, even when these pictures were taken which was during a big drought. The sound of the river masks human sounds and gives you a feeling of being far away from civilization.
