The Squire's Walking Stick

The tallest oak in the Republic of Ireland, according to the Irish Times, goes by the name of the Squire's Walking Stick. It stands beside the main avenue of Tullynally Castle, and the estate's own tree trail tells you to look for it on the left as you leave. The Telegraph went further. It called this the tallest oak in all of Ireland, at 112 feet, about 34 metres, and said the first Baron Longford planted it in 1745. Both the height and the date come from that one article, and nobody has published a measurement to check them against. The national heritage tree register tells a different story about age. In 2009 it put the demesne's named oak at 150 to 200 years, roughly a century short of 1745. Whether that register entry and this trunk are the same tree has not been shown, so the age here stays broad, somewhere between 200 and 280 years, until someone settles it. Thomas Pakenham, whose family owns Tullynally, has written about these grounds in In the Company of Trees. Stop eleven on the estate's tree trail is a young oak bred from the Walking Stick. Tullynally says its parkland is open to walkers all year, dogs on leads. The gardens are ticketed and seasonal, and it is not stated which side of that line this stretch of avenue falls on, so ask at reception.