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
Comments (8 of 8)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8"A spokesman for Dublin City Council said.... all the trees on the street will be "recycled in the coming months", despite strong protests from environmentalists".
???how do you recycle a tree???
You take it of to some place (?) and turn it into paper cups, give it to the planners to drink out off (while they swagger about their erections) and hope they throw it in the green bin.
rest assured some big fat city planner hiding in Dublin Corportation has just scored himself a new desk and office suite
Cut down a tree thats full or Irish History to allow a crane one days access to erect a modern art piece. What a ridiculous idea. How can this be justified. The trees on O'Connell street make the street. If they are removed, O'Connell St will become the same as any other grey and lifeless street.
London plane trees (the type in question) are ingenious environmentalists. Typically they shed their bark every few weeks/months (and leaves in winter) which means, in a place like Dublin city, a lot of polution is gathered and shed (and the bark replenished) by the nature of these trees.
Ah sure, ye never know, they might replace them with another 'arty' metal oak tree like the one at the central bank, won't that be lovel?
r
I wonder if they'd recognise it now 86 years later. The trees are great for keeping off the rain, and they're nice, and who the hell wants a big ugly spike (other than people being paid to build it)
trees are free... and they're alive, like people are supposed to be, free and alive.
not half aslumber and codding themselves about Irish democracy.
had a look at that really wide street today, surely you dont need to cut down trees to construct those cranes that are used everywhere else for building offices, do they plan to drive a monster like the one that was working near the port tunnel up the street, maybe we can decorate it and make it part of st patricks day. Also just wondering, down near the o'connell monument, seems to have less foliage and is it true that their are kiosks going there, most european style kiosks fit neatly into the streetscape, if you need to fell trees they must be pretty big kiosks, am i paranoid in picturing the council dreaming of something as beautiful as a drive thru mcdonalds or maybe a somewhere for a coffee chain to make us love our new cosmopolitan lifeststyles. Where can i see plans etc for the beautification of our lovely hamlet.
Is there nothing we can do about this?
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