HISTORIC LIME trees are being cut down at Killarney Golf and Fishing Club despite pleas by conservation bodies, golfers and experts to retain them. About one third of the 27 trees had been removed yesterday.
The avenue of 160-year-old trees – planted a decade before the visit of Queen Victoria to Killarney – between the club house and Killarney’s famed Lower Lake were being removed because they had become a nuisance and a health and safety hazard, management at the club said.
Branches had fallen and they were a danger to golf buggies and passing golfers. Two independent consultants had advised they should be removed. A third consultant said they could be preserved by being pruned, the club’s general manager Maurice O’Meara said. Not removing them would mean the club would be liable for damages to vehicles and pruning work had been ruled out on aesthetic grounds.
However, the Tree Council of Ireland said lime trees throughout Europe can live up to 600 years and there was no need to remove them. “Above all species, limes are responsive to severe pruning and tree surgery work,” said John McLoughlin, executive director of the Tree Council of Ireland.
Yesterday arboriculturist Cormac Foley said he was devastated on arriving at the site to find two of the trees had been felled on Tuesday. “Everything should be done to preserve [the trees],” Mr Foley said.
Conservation organisation Friends of the Irish Environment said it is increasingly concerned about the felling of amenity trees around the country.
“We have been waiting for more than 10 years for the revision of the Forestry Acts, which could help Ireland bring back its native forests. And meanwhile everywhere we turn the trees are disappearing,” spokesman Tony Lowes said.