Ireland’s employment of the ‘tops’ for rheumatic complaints is on record
from Leitrim,^36 Westmeath,^37 Co.Dublin,^38 Wicklow^39 and Limerick,^40 while
a use for neuralgia in Kilkenny^41 is clearly cognate. But though the plant has
featured as a liver remedy only from unspecified part of Ulster,^42 the country
has made up for that with a remarkable diversity of other minor applications
apparently exclusive to itself: for coughs and colds in Mayo^43 and Roscom-
mon^44 or, combined with bilberry tufts, for asthma in Carlow^45 ;for abscesses
in Cavan^46 and boils in Carlow^47 ;forerysipelas in Wexford^48 and rashes in
Tipperary^49 ; and for sprains in Kildare,^50 heartburn in Wicklow^51 and
toothache in Carlow again.^52 Broom tips also anciently took the place occupied
byjuniper in the Scottish Highlands, being burnt as a fumigant.^53 Anintrigu-
ing sidelight is the belief, reported from Cornwall^54 and Donegal,^55 that broom
was one of those plants with a ‘he-kind’ and a ‘she-kind’, each held to be more
potent (as a diuretic) if taken by the opposite sex. In other cases, separate and
even quite unrelated species have been the recipients of this taxonomic twin-
ning, but information is lacking on whether the distinction was made between
broom and some other plant (dyer’s greenweed,Genista tinctoriaLinnaeus,
perhaps) or merely between different growth states of broom itself.
Ulex gallii Planchon
western gorse
south-western Atlantic Europe
Ulex europaeus Linnaeus
gorse, furze
Atlantic Europe; introduced widely elsewhere
The recorded uses of gorse in folk medicine all come from those parts of the
west of the British Isles where Ulex gallii is the only one certainly native and
where U. europaeus,the common one over much of England, bears a name in
Gaelic or Welsh indicative of comparatively recent introduction, for hedging
and forage.
Apart from a veterinary use in the Isle of Man, the records come from
Ireland without exception. The principal application there has been for
coughs, colds, sore throats and hoarseness (Down,^56 Londonderry,^57 Done-
gal,^58 Wicklow,^59 Wa t e r f o r d^60 ), including consumption (Limerick^61 ). In Lon-
donderry,^62 Wicklow^63 and Kilkenny^64 it has also featured as a tonic, espe-
cially for cleansing or ‘increasing’ the blood, while in parts of Ulster^65 and in
Wicklow^66 and Wexford^67 it has been favoured for heartburn or hiccups. In
Cavan^68 and Limerick^69 decoctions of the flowers or ‘tops’ have been given for
Legumes, Spurges and Geraniums 163