My father, Paddy Byrne (Bawn) was a farmer’s son from the Vale of Clara in Co. Wicklow (Figure 1). He began his timber career during the Second World War using horses to extract hardwood trees to the roadside, in what is now the Vale of Clara NatureReserve, for the then Forestry Division of the Department of Lands. The “Dept.”, as the locals referred to the Forestry Division, had a sawbench in the forest and firewood was produced for State and private customers as coal and oil were very scarce during the war years.
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