I will not stand by and let them kill an old friend
Djinn Gallagher is prepared to chain herself to the magnificent tree outside her house to prevent its execution
ON FRIDAY morning, I stood in the hallway of my tiny house and read the death warrant of a close friend.
It was a harmless-looking circular, headed ‘Dublin City Council’, but this had some really bad news: the 90-yearold London plane tree outside my house is to be cut down next weekend.
I wept. It was the announcement of a savage execution, and I’d only heard about it because the council was asking me not to park my car outside the house next Saturday “so that the work can be carried out in a safe and efficient manner”.
It was as if I was being told they were going to murder my elderly uncle, so could I oblige them by keeping out of the way. Not bloody likely.
Stella Kinsella lives next door; she was born in that house in the late Twenties. Her mother told her about the London planes being planted along the street when the houses were built.
Stella is a gentle soul, and her eyes misted over as she looked up at the magnificent tree towering above the singlehouses. “My mother said it was the breath of the children playing on the street that made the trees grow,” she told me.
I tried to talk to the people who organised the plane-tree chainsaw massacre. The Parks and Landscape Services Division told me the man involved won’t be back until Monday, but Fianna Fail councillor Mary Fitzpatrick was a member of the committee that voted to cut the tree down.
She told me that even though young people like me love trees, older people are afraid of them. But Stella Kinsella is the most senior person in the street, and her affection for the tree is obvious.
Independent councillor Mick Rafferty told me he has commissioned a sculpture using the limbs of the London planes cut down on O’Connell Street last year. It’s nice to have his support, but I’d rather have a living tree than a bronze memorial.
Green councillor Bronwen Maher felt that cutting trees down should be a last resort — but she didn’t offer any suggestions on what to do when the men in green jackets turn up on my doorstep wielding power tools.
So on Saturday, unless something happens in the meantime, I’ll be chaining myself to a tree and waiting for the barbarians to start cutting.