If Trees Could Talk: celebrating the majesty of trees

To celebrate our natural heritage as part of Heritage Week 2019, the Heritage Council, with the help of Dublin City Council, has branched into the arboreal world and is giving a voice to some magical city trees with an installation entitled “If Trees Could Talk”.

Taking place today and tomorrow Friday (16th) the work will bring new life into the trees of Merrion Square in an unbeLEAFable way!

Ireland’s heritage with trees goes back long before Christianity came to our shores.

Trees have been doing everything from telling our stories, to honouring and shaping our pastimes for thousands of years.

Trees are a vital part of our survival as a species and do a massively important job of making the air in our cities more breathable.

They remove carbon from the air, which gets absorbed and stored as cellulose in their trunks, branches, and leaves.

Planting trees remains one of the most cost-effective ways of drawing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. A single mature tree can absorb CO2 at a rate of 21.6 KG/year and release enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support 2 humans.

Ash & Hurling

Hurling has been one of our pastimes for centuries, maybe even millennia. Hurleys are made from ash, and even though most of Ireland’s ash is imported nowadays there are still 250 to 300 full or part-time hurley makers in Ireland today.

Yew trees & Graveyards

Yew Trees have had a long association with graveyards and are often found beside churches.

Ogham - The Celtic Tree Alphabet

The Ogham alphabet is the first form of writing ever used in the Irish language. Each letter was given a name as an aide-memoire and tradition holds that each letter is named after a different native tree.

Heritage Week wants to celebrate the green giants that surround us by creating what will be an eye-popping installation involving the trees of Merrion Square, thanks too to the support of Dublin City Council.

If Trees Could Talk is guaranteed to draw many curious eyes and will be well worth making the trip to Dublin 2 for, especially with your kids!

National Heritage Week is a celebration of Ireland's built, natural and cultural heritage and aims to generate awareness, appreciation and preservation of our wonderful resources.

This year the Heritage Council’s chosen theme for Heritage Week is the celebration of Pastimes and Past Times. People across Ireland and visitors from afar are encouraged to take a stroll through history and explore the unique ways in which we choose to spend our free time and how this has evolved throughout the years.

The Heritage Week programme features events for all ages, most of which are free to attend.

Coordinated by the Heritage Council since 2005, National Heritage Week has become one of Ireland’s largest cultural events. Last year, more than half a million people attended in excess of 2,200 events across the country, most of which were hosted by communities, volunteers and individuals who champion Ireland’s heritage in its many forms.

All registered events are listed on www.heritageweek.ie.