One-hundred-year-old trees removed following Storm Ophelia

Three trees on the southside of Dublin city, 60ft-70ft in height and up to 100 years old, had to be removed by a specialist tree surgeon in the aftermath of Storm Ophelia.

Redwood Tree Services, which provides landscaping and tree surgery services to Dublin City Council, removed the first large tree – which was about 65ft tall and on St Mary's Road, just off Northumberland Road in Dublin 4 – during the storm, at about 6pm on Monday.

The tree had not yet fallen, but had become unstable, Graham Stanley of Redwood said. "Gardaí had evacuated people from the house because of concern over the tree, which hadn't come down but was swaying in the ground. We took that down at about 6pm before it could do any damage."

On Tuesday morning Redwood began work at Northbrook Road in Ranelagh where an even taller tree, about 70ft in height, had fallen against a house, breaking two windows and some guttering. The house is for sale and it is understood it was unoccupied.

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Crane company

“We had spotted this one on Monday and had contacted the council. We had to bring in a crane company and take it down in sections over about 4½ hours,” Mr Stanley said.

The third large tree, this one about 60ft tall, was removed from Clyde Road in Ballsbridge on Tuesday after it had fallen against some apartments. "This one was pressed against three windows and hadn't broken any of them – the damage was very limited."

While Mr Stanley will continue work on storm damaged trees over the coming days, all the trees in Dublin city which had been considered dangerous are believed to have been dealt with. “We’ve taken care of the three major trees and dealt about 10 more incidents of broken limbs, so anything which might cause a major incident has been dealt with and from now on it will mainly be dealing with trees in parks.”

Fallen trees

While the Dublin area sustained significantly less damage than other parts of the country, three social houses in the South Dublin County Council area sustained roof damage, but the council said did not require evacuation. The council received more than 100 calls to its emergency out of hours phone lines on Monday, with the majority of reports concerning fallen trees.

Fingal County Council said it received more than 70 calls, most in relation to fallen trees, and while there was some damage to council buildings, all of it was minor.

Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council said it received fewer than 20 calls to its housing maintenance section, relating to its social housing stock. "The vast majority of the calls were reports of slates or tiles blowing off roofs, minor damage to chimney pots and minor damage to garden fences from falling branches."

Dublin City Council said there was “no major structural damage” to council houses or other council properties.