Due to its association with Christmas, Holly is one of our more easily recognised native trees. It is a visually attractive small tree and is very suitable for gardens as a specimen tree or hedge as it is slow growing and very dense. Trees can live for up to 250 years and the hard, pale wood is valued for carving, inlaying and engraving. You will find it in oak-woods, on ditches or high up in mountain gullies where there is shelter from the harsh upland winds.
Cuilleann its Irish form, is found in many townland names: Glencullen co. Dublin
Cullenagh and Cullentragh both describe a place that abounded with holly. The holly tree is either male or female and only the female has red berries. It the indiscriminate cutting of whole trees, now a practice at Christmas time, continues the could soon become an endangered species