Growing interest in Arboretum centre
AN interpretation centre has been unveiled at the JFK Arboretum and Memorial Park in County Wexford to mark the 50th anniversary of its opening.
The Office of Public Works (OPW) developed the interpretation space for visitors to the historic landscape to learn about the plant collection throughout the arboretum in Ballysop, New Ross.
The JFK Arboretum and Memorial Park is dedicated to the memory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and is a tree collection of international standing.
The room was officially opened by OPW Minister Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran, who described it as a ‘significant’ milestone in front of a large crowd of fuests.
The room has been designed to make visitors feel like they are in a woodland with explanations of what they will find in the arboretum which attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year to the area.
Mr Kennedy’s visit to Ireland in June 1963 was a pivotal moment in Irish history and following his death in November 1963, a number of Irish-American societies established the memorial forest as a living tribute to him in Ireland. The arboretum was opened formally by president Eamon De Valera in May 1968.
Dr Matthew Jebb, who has worked for National Botanical Gardens for over 20 years and has been director since 2010, said they wanted a centre where people could hear the story behind the arboretum.
‘It’s not an interpretation centre that we want people to dwell in any longer than 15 minutes because they have come to explore 600 acres of woodland and we want to teach them what they are looking at and get them outside and see it first-hand,’ he said.
‘It’s a single room with screens made from beautiful Irish timbers, and explanations of different things that are done in an arboretum, why they are done and the history of Irish forestry and history of arboretum itself.
‘You will meet families who have been coming for years and to them it’s a beautiful space for kids to run free and adults to take a walk, but they have never understood the significance of where the trees are and what it means. You can walk amongst the species and learn what they are.’
The team behind the memorial park has been growing over the last four years with a number of horticulturists and tour guides helping to develop the grounds. The number of visitors to the centre has also been growing at a rate of around 9 per cent every year so much so that up to 100,000 visitors visit the arboretum each year.
Dr Jebb added: ‘We are protecting a fascinating history of heritage in Ireland but also teaching the generations of the importance of trees and forestry in our State
at a time of great climate change.’