Dublin City Council is proposing to remove/destroy 62 trees from Fairview to facilitate a new cycle path - even though there is already one in Fairview Park itself! I am totally opposed to the removal of trees which are all over 100 years old. Hugo McGuinness, a local historian and personal friend of mine has done some great research on the trees in Fairview and I am reproducing this below for your information. I'm not really known as a "green, lentil eating tree hugger" but this proposal is outrageous and must be opposed. Like many people from the inner city, Fairview Park was and is a place we all went to to play football, play games or, for those of us old enough, to watch performances in the Bandstand! (Of course in my playing days I scored many a wonder goal in Fairview Park - pity there wasn't iPhones in those days to capture them!!) Fairview Trees - history In honour of Arbor Day (31st October) 1908, The Irish Forestry Society organised the planting of six trees along the Fairview Improvements Grounds, which were in the process of being reclaimed for what would become modern day Fairview Park. (The tree at the end of Malahide Road must have been one of them - it is now a memorial to a girl who died there in a car crash - she was from Bayview Avenue North Strand and her mother regularily put flowers there) It was quite an impressive ceremony, and each tree, named after a county borough, (Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Derry, and Waterford), was planted by one of the visiting dignitaries who included the Lord Mayor, as well as Dr. J.L. Morrow of Clontarf Presbyterian Church (founder of Clontarf Golf Club which still has a room "The Morrow Room" named after him in the clubhouse) and Fr. James Brady, and Fr. Denis Petit, the local Roman Catholic Parish Priests. Then “a considerable number” of other trees, part of a consignment of 6,000 donated to the IFS by Alexander Dickson, were planted. Similar events took place at Portumna, Doneraile, Blackrock, and Sandycove, with demonstrations organised later in the week at local schools to show the process and benefits of tree planting. Fr. James Brady, for example, provided the demonstration at St. Laurence O’Toole’s School at Seville Place. In planting the “Dublin” tree, the Lord Mayor, Gerald O’Reilly, expressed the hope that in the future “it would not be shifted from the spot where it was planted.” This is now what is being proposed! The Irish Forestry Society had been founded in the wake of a privately commissioned report in the 1880s which suggested that the proper reforestation of Ireland would not only have important health benefits for the country but would potentially create a substantial amount of employment. As the then government failed to act the Irish Forestry Society was born and decided to take matters in hand. Former Lord Mayor and MP, Charles Dawson, noted that not only would the trees assist in the battle against the “scourge of consumption”, but he noted that many of those involved in the Fairview ceremony “worship at different alters” yet it showed that it was “in the power of all creeds and classes to join together and do something for their common country.” The following year, local landowner, Thomas Picton-Bradshaw of Mount Temple (where the school now stands), donated a large number of trees and shrubs for a similar event at Fairview on Arbour Day 1909 to be planted between Annesley Bridge and the Malahide Road. One writer noted that the passer-by “can now see the promising beginnings of a growth that should give ample and graceful decoration to the park of the future.” THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT - NO TREES NO PARK - WE OWE THE EXISTANCE OF FAIRVIEW PARK TO THE EARLIER PLANTING OF THE TREES! In truth, while a park had been discussed it was unclear exactly what use the reclaimed lands commonly knowns as the Fairview Sloblands would be put to, and the planting of the trees certainly pushed things in favour of the creation of modern day Fairview Park - one of the jewels of the Dublin City Council Parks Service. As the case for and against the park was argued the First World War broke out in 1914 and for its duration the Local Government Board took over the small amount of reclaimed land at Fairview for a type of Jobsbridge scheme growing cheap vegetables for Dublin. This pushed back the possible opening of the park, and the then Corporation, finding the 3 pence charge per load quite lucrative, extended the dumping of waste at the area well into the 1920s covering much of the already reclaimed land used by the Local Government Board during the war. In 1920, the prompt actions of Alderman David Quaid, had stopped a motion being rushed through which would have seen much of the reclaimed parkland leased to a market farmer. It would be 1934 before Dublin Corporation adopted a set of bye-laws which would make Fairview Park a reality. But back in 1908 the influence of those embryonic steps of the Irish Forestry Society, together with the local clergy, business, and political community, was far-reaching. Limerick had been “excited greatly” by happenings at Fairview, and that City’s Corporation announced they were purchasing 200 trees to be planted in various wards throughout that city. Others would soon follow. As the Fairview Trees survive into their second century it’s unlikely that anyone could tell you which tree is called Dublin, let alone Belfast or Cork today. However, they are a constant reminder of how a community came together and working with their local authorities, first British and then Irish, were determined to direct the shape their environment would take. In his address at that 1908 ceremony, Charles Dawson, Honorary Secretary of the IFS, stated that the object of that day’s exercise was to “make a demonstration with a view to compelling the Government to undertake the work of re-afforesting Ireland (i.e. the PLANTING OF THE TREES AT FAIRVIEW WAS THE FIRST STEP IN THE REFORESTATION OF IRELAND). The people could not do it; but the Government could.” At that time, it was estimated only 1.5% of Ireland’s lands had forests. A succession of acts throughout the 1920s and an ambitious EU funded programme since the 1980s sees over 650,000 hectares of woodlands in Ireland today. Those dynamic Clontarf and Fairview residents 99 years ago little realised what they were starting. Those first small steps along the sloblands have left us an extraordinary legacy. It’s a legacy which we should be celebrating in 2017 not destroying.