Residents irate as trees are felled

August 1989

Wexford Corporation officials have been branded as ‘vandals’ for cutting down fully-grown trees in an historic graveyard.

Residents living close to the old St. Patrick’s Square graveyard claim that the trees were perfectly healthy. The Corporation insists they were old and dangerous.

The difference of opinion arose on Tuesday morning when workers from Southern Tree Surgeons Ireland move in with chainsaws to cut down the trees.

Horrified residents of Peter Street and Patrick’s Square immediately objected, but their protests did not stop the work from going ahead.

‘It’s sheer vandalism. That’s what it is,’ said Isabel Lowney, Chairwoman of Peter Street Residents Association. ‘It’s the only bit of greenery we have in the area. We were told that the trees were rotten, but we can’t accept that.’

A spokesman for Wexford Corporation said the trees had been inspected by experts from An Foras Forbartha, Johnstown Castle, and Southern Tree Surgeons Ireland, and had been condemned as dangerous.

‘Their advice was that the trees were beyond treatment. If one had fallen and caused damage, we wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on,’ he said.

He understood how local residents may have thought the trees were healthy, he said, because trees can appear to be growing normally on the outside while they are in fact rotten inside.