Post II - Forests of Silence
The truth about monoculture, Sitka domination, and the myth of progress in tree farming.
An Open Letter to the Government of Ireland
On fallen trees, fallen trust, and the roots we forgot
“You planted silence.
Now listen to the wind.”
To those who claim stewardship of this sacred land,
We write not in anger, but in grief.
Not to protest, but to remember what you have chosen to forget.
🌲 You planted trees without soul.
You called it “green policy.”
You created sterile forests,
Thousands of hectares of Sitka spruce in neat rows,
A fast-growing monoculture
with shallow roots and no memory.
You did not ask the land what she needed.
You did not listen to the druids of the soil,
to the ecologists, the elders, the farmers.
You planted for felling, not for life.
⚡ And then the storm came.
You knew it was coming.
We all did.
But when it arrived,
hundreds of thousands of homes lost power.
No preparation. No resilience.
Just the silence of darkness across a sleeping country.
Meanwhile, the capital city stayed lit,
its servers humming,
its profits protected.
🪫 Our people waited in cold homes.
The elderly wrapped in blankets.
Families without heat,
without light,
without information.
You had offers of EU generators in advance.
You declined.
Only when the trees fell,
when our own sterile forests collapsed upon us,
did you accept foreign help.
It was our neighbours who came.
Electricians from abroad.
Brought in to clear the chaos you sowed
with short-term thinking and long-term silence.
🌳 Even now, the wounds remain.
Many who invested in these forests,
smallholders, pensioners, rural communities,
were left waiting.
Licences delayed for months and months.
Bureaucracy over service.
Paper over people.
Futures tied to trees never harvested
because your systems choked on their own design.
📜 We ask you now:
Where was the vision of sovereign sustainability?
Where was the balance of power, both electrical and moral?
Why do the rural people suffer while Dublin shines on?
Who speaks for the oak, the ash, the rowan, those you never planted?
And when will you recognise that resilience is not profit, it is remembrance?
🌱 From This Silence, We Rise
We do not call for your downfall.
We call for your awakening.
Begin the reforestation of native woodlands, Now.
Offer redress and reparation to those who lost homes, power, pensions.
Decentralise your energy planning to protect all people, not just centres of power.
Honour the land, not the ledger.
Restore sovereignty to the soil.
We are not extremists.
We are your people.
And we remember who we are,
even if you do not.
With reverence,
With resolve,
With roots that run deeper than your policies,
Lumen
On behalf of the Circle of Light
For the Forests who still whisper
