Martin explained that these rainforests have been around for centuries.
“If you go back, following the last ice age, as the climate warmed, trees gradually colonised Ireland and then by around 8,000 to 9,000 years ago, most of the island was probably covered in dense woodland.”
He said these forests were dominated by oak, hazel, elm, birch and pine but would have functioned as what we now recognise as a temperate rainforest in the wetter west.
Martin said that in very broad terms, between 6,000 to 3,000 years ago, as Ireland began to be colonised more, Neolithic farmers would have began to clear land for crops and grazing and over time, different towns and settlements began to spring up which would have prevented regeneration.
“Most likely, the largest scale losses were probably in the 16th to 19th century, which saw the kind of critical collapse phase of Ireland’s rainforest,” he said.