Gold Medal of Honour for Kilmacurragh’s Seamus
THE Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland awarded its gold Medal of Honour to Seamus O’Brien, Head Gardener at the National Botanic Gardens, Kilmacurragh.
The presentation was made at a luncheon at the Royal St. George Yacht Club by Robert Myerscough, President of the RHSI.
Seamus thanked the RHSI for instigating the awarding of the medal to him.
‘I am greatly honoured to have been chosen, particularly given the glittering list of past recipients’.
Seamus is considered one of Ireland’s most outstanding present-day plantsmen, and is widely known throughout the country and in the U.K.
His interest started at an early age during his upbringing on a farm in Wicklow. He received his formal training at the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin and holds an International Diploma in Botanic Gardens Management from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Seamus is a corresponding member of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Woody Plant Committee. He contributes to numerous publications, including Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, and the International Dendrology Society’s Year Book, as well as the Irish Garden Plant Society’s newsletter.
As an author, he has reached an international audience. Published in 2018, ‘Footsteps of Joseph Dalton Hooker, a Sikkim adventure’ retraces Hooker’s 1847 expedition to Sikkim, when he would discover botanical treasures. Previously unknown in the West. O’Brien’s first-hand account, based on his own travels to Sikkim, traces the discoveries which were supplied as seedlings to Kilmacurragh, many of which still grow there.
He is also the author of in the ‘Footsteps of Augustine Henry, and his Chinese plant collectors’, published in 2011.