Gardaí are investigating criminal damage to a Rathmines tree

An Garda Síochana is investigating an incident of criminal damage to a tree on the street at Rathmines Road Lower in April this year.

That same tree was damaged before as well, back in 2021.

In February 2021, residents in Rathmines complained to Dublin City Council that a previously healthy tree on the street had been “butchered”.

All that had been left behind was the trunk and stumps of branches, they said.

A council parks officer wrote back to the residents to say that no one had sought permission from the council to hack away most of the tree.

This is “something that is happening more often to our trees across the city”, he wrote in emails released to Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan, on foot of a request under the Access to Information on the Environment (AIE) Regulation.

“This tree will have to be replaced now at a considerable cost,” wrote the council parks officer.

Tracey Quinn, a local resident and member of the Rathmines Initiative, a community improvement group, says that the tree did manage to recover after that, and slowly its green shoots returned, its branches grew back.

But then on 13 April this year, she discovered the tree had been shorn again. “I got up, went for a walk with the dog to discover the tree had been utterly butchered, worse than the last time,” says Quinn.

The council’s Parks, Biodiversity and Landscape Services section “did not carry out or authorise the pruning of this tree”, a council spokesperson said on 29 April this year.

“We are not aware of who carried out these works. This matter has been referred to the Rathmines Garda Station,” he said.

Boylan, the Sinn Féin MEP, said that, “Dublin’s streets are crying out for more trees but in parts of the city, the ones we have are being hacked to bits. It’s vandalism plain and simple.”

A spokesperson for An Garda Síochana says they received a report of an incident of criminal damage on 25 April.

“A tree was damaged in the course of this incident,” says the Garda spokesperson. “Investigations are ongoing at this time.”

Timeline of attacks

Google Street View records from 2014 show the tree had been significantly pruned on one side. In 2018, the pictures show a healthy, large green tree.

In June 2021, the tree was completely decimated. But by that October, it appears to have been recovering, and green leaves appeared again.

By June 2022, the small tree was recovering its foliage. But by June 2025 the tree had been reduced to little more than a trunk.

Independent Councillor Mannix Flynn says that he has been contacted by residents in other locations in the city concerned that private companies are damaging trees.

Flynn says that the council needs to investigate whether felling street trees is taking place elsewhere too – and who is doing it.

Dublin City Council has not yet replied to a query sent Friday about whether the same thing is happening elsewhere in the city.

Dublin City Council is responsible for the maintenance of street trees, which are public property. According to its tree strategy, the council will only cut down an on-street tree if it poses a risk to safety.

“Where trees are considered to be causing damage to paths or footpaths the council will not normally consider tree removal, except where there is a risk to public health which cannot otherwise be mitigated,” says the tree strategy.

The council can rebuild the path around the tree roots, it says, rather than sacrifice the tree.