The Cloughjordan Community Development Committee are the community partners in two award winning local biodiversity and climate action projects with Coillte Forest and the National Parks & Wildlife Service. The raised bog restoration programme at Scohaboy Bog NHA (see ) which includes the Loop of Laghille and Loughaun National Trail and Knockanacree Woodlands at the village
`s northern edge. Knockanacree Woodlands covers 41 hectares or just over 110 acres and historically formed part of the estate of Knockanacree Woods House. The house itself no longer exists, having been burned down during the War of Independence but the walls of the old garden can still be seen on the main road beside the woods. Other remnants within the woodland include 17th century fieldwalls and a ringfort. Knockanacree is a mixed deciduous woodland, predominately Beech with stands of Ash, Oak and Scot`s Pine. It is classed as an Old Woodland site, implying that it has had continuous tree cover for over 200 years. Much of the original mature tree stock was exported and used as timber supports in the trenches during World War I and the careful eye will see some surviving remnants from the original forest. In the 1950’s the State Forestry Division, the precursor to Coillte, began replanting the wood, creating much needed work for local people at the time. Knockanacree Woodland has a very special place in the hearts of local people and was a place of much influence in the early years of local poet and patriot, Thomas MacDonagh. He wrote several poems about the woodland and his time spent there including these lines from Summer Joys:
`.....And in summer I love to walk and lie long in the woodlands:
The sun breaks through all the varied tree boughs and branches,
And the light through the leaves falls fair in wavering arrows:
There’s a stillness in the woods, yet melodious murmur of summer. alone which I love
I have a little hill to climb:
I look all around on the distant land in delight
A brown bog, and a wood, tilth, and pasture and town,
And, white like silver, a river wide but far.`
In 2011 through LEADER funding from North Tipperary Development Company, the CCDC embarked on a Trails development programme in partnership with Coillte Forest and created three looped walks for the visitor to enjoy. In the 2014 RDS Irish Forestry Awards, Knockanacree secured `Runners-Up` in the Community Woodlands Category. In 2019 through funding under Tipperary County Council`s Town and Village Renewal Scheme, the Beech Trail was extended to create a longer loop around the woodlands edge. The Beech Trail features in Tipperary Tourisms Top Twenty Tipperary Walks. See www.coillteoutdoors.ie for trail map and information. Life in a woodland tends to be secretive. Quiet observation will reveal a world full of activity and life. Song birds flit through the tree canopy seeking out insects and small invertebrates. Sparrowhawks in turn, hunt the small birds, while signs of fox and badger are visible to the discerning eye. Hazelnuts are plentiful on the woodland edge and along with the seeds of the Scots Pine trees ,provide a rich source of winter food for the resident Red Squirrels. Springtime brings a profusion of bluebells and Wild Garlic on the eastern side of the woodland and a carpet of Wood Anemone flowers on the west. Wild strawberries grow along the central pathways in Summer alongside the yellow creeping St. John’s Wort. The dominant tree species is Beech. They crowd together with their smooth grey trunks and dense, soaring light green canopies, creating a cathedral-like impression. In Autumn, they glow with warm colour as the leaves turn spectacular shades of russet, gold and brown.
