GOING NATIVE
Free native trees distributed from Caherlistrane base
ONE of the many important aims of Free Trees Ireland is to try and ensure that no person is any more than a 50-minute drive away from a distributor of free native Irish trees.
The Free Trees Ireland initiative is the brainchild of Paddy Mangan from Oldcastle in Meath. Paddy has delivered 34,000 trees to distributors across the country so far, all paid for out of his own pocket, except for 5,400 trees donated by Coillte.
There are 30 distributors nationwide working with Free Trees Ireland, two of them in County Galway in Portumna and Caherlistrane.
Janie Smit lives in Caherlistrane. She took an assortment of trees from Paddy Mangan on the Saturday of the February Bank Holiday weekend, most of which were picked up by other distributors, and roughly 760 of which were left for Janie to dispatch in her own region.
She has also helped get the Free Trees Ireland website up and running.
“We moved to Caherlistrane in July. There was a big hedge on the back parameter of the house of about 20 Leyland cypress trees. We chopped them down and woodchipped them,” said Janie, who is from South Africa originally…
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