Altidore Castle Gets Some ReWild Love

Resting on their laurel kill… Altidore Castle 18JAN25

atest press release from ReWild Wicklow, issued on Thursday, January 23rd 2025…

Local environmental charity ReWild Wicklow had their biggest volunteer yet with 45 attendees on Saturday 18th January at Altidore Castle and Demesne.

They were there to help the Emmet family, owners of Altidore Castle, to clear the invasive shrub cherry laurel from the ancient woodland in their glen.

This plant is a growing issue in Ireland as it is spreading rapidly through all our woodlands, especially along watercourses. It is originally from Asia and is used here in ornamental hedging. However when established in our native woodlands its thick glossy, evergreen leaves block out the sun and suppress growth around it. It spreads through its roots, which also contain a poison, and left unchecked it is now starting to destroy large areas of woodland in Wicklow.

“Our volunteers have been really keen to fight back against the spread of cherry laurel for quite some time,” said ReWild Wicklow chairperson Danny Alvey after the event. “We’ve been hoping to work with a partner on a project to tackle it and so we were delighted to team up with the Emmet family at Altidore Castle. Our volunteers spent the morning cutting back the laurel in three main areas and dragging all of the branches and leaves out of the woodland – it was tough but rewarding work to see large areas of woodland opened up to the light again. Especially considering the woodland here is a rare fragment of our once great ancient oak forest in Wicklow.”

Altidore Castle is a 200 acre estate that has been organic since 1994 and it contains a fifteen hectare glen that has been in woodland for many centuries, it is featured on the list of Ancient and Long Established Woodlands compiled by ESRI Ireland. It has unusual bryophytes, such as Dumortier’s Liverwort; Altidore is the only place in Wicklow this is currently found. The river that runs through this woodland has been designated a Blue Dot high quality status river.

There are also three native woodland plantings which are now approaching maturity, having been planted eighteen years ago. The castle opens as a historic house to the public and the owners also run various biodiversity events as well as a forest school separately being based there.

Philip Emmet, owner of Altidore Castle, said, “The laurel has been a pervasive problem at Altidore. We were a finalist for the RDS Native Woodland Conservation prize last year but the judges did note that we had a lot of laurel in our long established or ancient woodland. It’s
fantastic to see so many people coming together on a project like this and to see such quick results in only a morning.”

Thomas Emmet, his son, said, “It’s great to be working with ReWild Wicklow, which do such fantastic work across the county. Their values really align with the work we do at Altidore preserving existing biodiversity and educating people about their role in nature. We can’t wait to work with them again.”

ReWild Wicklow will be returning to do more volunteer work at Altidore Castle and have volunteer days every weekend across the whole county doing tree planting, invasive clearing, peatland restoration and working in their native tree nursery.

You can find out more and join the volunteer list on the ReWild Wicklow website here, and jump back through their work here.