Sir, - Each day as I leave home, I walk past a tall, dead birch tree standing in a front garden, overhanging the footpath in Dublin. Beneath the tree, children are often playing with toy cars, or with a little kitchenette set which is always there against the garden wall.
I have personal experience from childhood of a dead birch tree suddenly dropping down on top of kids playing below it, seriously injuring one friend and traumatising the rest of us. The wood of the tree had rotted and become sodden, held together by the sturdy birch bark alone. The wet pulp was extremely heavy and it silently dropped, with devastating effect. I guess I can forgive myself for being a bit sensitive to the potential danger the tree in my neighbourhood presents.
I have pursued many avenues to have the tree removed before an accident takes place. I have spoken to the kids’ parents who rent the property about it, to the owners of the property, to local representatives, to every candidate canvassing our neighbourhood for votes, I even pointed it out to the local gardaí as they passed beneath it.
I suppose that I am posing a question rather than making a point: Where does one’s civic duty begin and end?
READ MORE
The tree has become something of a personal “Sword of Damacles” for me; suspended ready to strike, indefinitely but inevitably destined to fall. Kids are always playing beneath it. I cross the street rather than walk under it, or I detour around it, taking a longer route to avoid being confronted by its presence. I am reduced to hoping that it comes down in the middle of the night when nobody is around, unlike the one I still vividly remember.
This morning I was confronted by the sight of all the trees on the road having been neatly pruned to within an inch of their lives, but towering above them like a malevolent sentinel stood the rotten trunk and bony arms of the birch, resplendent in its death, clawing up at the clear blue sky, swaying in the wind, just waiting for its moment.
In addition to causing me concern and unease, the tree now seems to be mocking my ineptitude at finding someone willing to take the responsibility of destroying it. - Yours, etc,
Brian Palm,
Drumcondra,
Dublin 3
