Council, mind that tree!

A beech tree gracing the New Abbey Road in Kilcullen should be registered so that it cannot be knocked if there are developments that include road widening.



That's the view expressed by local man Joe Kelly, who's favourite past-time is walking the country roads and fields around Kilcullen.

"It's a landmark tree, and as far as I can make out it was mature more than a century ago," he told the Diary. "It would be a shame if anything were to happen to it."

He noted that at the back of the tree there are carved the letters and date 'JD 1902' and that they seem to have been there for a very long time, indicating that there had already been considerable growth in the tree at the time they were cut into the bark.

"I'd be concerned that if it isn't registered, it might be taken out during any work to widen the road," he says. "I remember when the Council took down the Big Tree at Nicholastown to make way for an entrance to a new estate, without any consultation or warning. That tree had been a landmark for several hundred years."

Joe intends to ask the Tree Council of Ireland to register the tree for its own protection.




Brian Byrne.