100 Year Old Trees Felled in Dublin

national | miscellaneous | news report Sunday November 03, 2002 16:02 by Treehugger

Stop the removal of the trees!

From the Irish Independent, reprinted here as it is a registration only site

100-year-old trees felled to raise Spike

O'CONNELL Street is being stripped of its trees to give access to the crane that will erect the Spike, according to town planner and Green Party TD, Ciaran Cuffe.

Several mature trees have already been felled to prepare the site for the metal "monument", but more now face the axe to allow access for machinery. Dublin's central thoroughfare will be stripped of every tree within months.

A spokesman for Dublin City Council said it would be cutting down the London Plane trees some of which are over 100 years old to allow one-off access for a crane. He denied every tree was being felled for this reason, but said all the trees on the street will be "recycled in the coming months", despite strong protests from environmentalists.

Ciaran Cuffe, who is a qualified architect, said there must be a way of erecting the spire without cutting down all the trees on O'Connell Street. "I am in favour of the redevelopment . . . but some of the older trees have to be maintained. They are important national symbols," he added.

Some of the trees at the north end of O'Connell Street are embedded with bullets from the Easter Rising and provide important roosting grounds for Pied Wagtails.

Environmentalists are said to be planning a protest campaign after seven trees were chopped down near Abbey Street to make way for an Luas electricity substation.

The tram company said that while it was not essential to locate the transformer on O'Connell Street, that was the decision made by Dublin City Council.

EOGHAN WILLIAMS