Keith, among the Celts the Oak was almost sacred. The Pre-Christian Druids usually performed worship ceremonies around the largest oak tree in the grove. Ireland, in antiquity, had great forests of a beautiful Oak. In fact,in County Offaly alone, there are fifty-three townlands beginning with Doire (the fourth largest) Derry, or Doire, means an oak tree grove, as indeed does Durrow which which is also in Offaly, and was the site of St. Columba's favorite monastery. Of course, there is County Derry, which was most certainly a sacred place. In fact, the word 'druid' is derived from the Irish word for Oak, dair, which means 'one who is learned from the wise old oak tree. Examples like these can be found in most of the other counties of Ireland as well. Over the centuries of occupation, these beautiful forests were cut down and sent to the contintent for shipbuilding and furniture building. One can look at the records of the Parliamentary Debates of the of the Houses of the Oireachtas in the early days to see that once the Free State, and later the Republic, was established they were very concerned with reforestation of this resource for the use of the Irish people. My understanding is that there is still a movement afoot to re-establish and maintain the Irish Oak Groves.

The plundering of the resources, as noted by Divis, must be tied to the Great Hunger. While Irish peoples were starving to death, enough food was exported to feed the Irish people. In Ireland Before and After the Famine Cormac O'Grada documents that in 1845, a famine year in Ireland, 3,251,907 quarters (8 bushels = 1 quarter)) of corn were exported from Ireland to Britain. That same year 257,257 sheep were exported to Britain. In 1846, another famine year, 480,827 swine and 186,483 oxen were exported to Britain.

Cecil Woodham-Smith, considered the preeminent authority on the Irish Famine, wrote in The Great Hunger; Ireland 1845-1849 that, "...no issue has provoked so much anger or so embittered relations between the two countries (England and Ireland) as the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation."

"Although the potato crop failed, the country was still producing and exporting more than enough grain crops to feed the population. But that was a 'money crop' and not a 'food crop' and could not be interfered with." Source: http://www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/irish/irish_pf.html In my readings on the matter, I have seen numerous examples, before and during the Hunger, of Irish folks being thrown out of their homes, in order to tear down the home and use the land for graze and for cash crops. There are many pictures that document these evictions.

I don't know that the term 'indentured servitude' is the right one to use to describe what happened to the Irish in their own land, but it is the kindest that I can come up with.

The money ruled. The laissez-faire attitude that caused the occupiers to value the money more than the people of Ireland caused more agony, and is the root of the 'religious' strife that has haunted the land of my grandparents for centuries, and as we can see from this and other threads, still haunts this land.

Personally, I think that James Connolly's "to take and hold Ireland, and the food of Ireland, for the people of Ireland" form of socialism was the factor that finally began the process that has led to this moment. When the day comes, as I believe it will, that the North of Ireland is reunited with the South of Ireland under the flag of the Republic, it will be in no small part due to this basic attitude, borne of the centuries of the abuse of the Irish people and their land.