Dubliners have another two days to live with their decorations, but the job of taking down the City’s numerous Christmas trees has already started.
41 have been put up by Dublin City Council, some as early as the start of November, and today – workers started the process of removing them.
Grafton Street was the first to be taken down today, and dismantling the lights on the tree is a big job, just like what you have to do at home.
Martin Feeney from the council says there are 500 lights but they’re all linked together.
“Each loom comes down individually. You just cut the cable tie at the top of the tree, take off each individual cable tie then you lift off each individual loom. Looms are probably up and down, they go up one side and down another, depending on the tree – so you might have 5 looms on this one”.
He added that each location has a box for their lights which are stored in their workshop.
“Exactly as it happens at home, bang them into a box, put them away, next October we’ll take them down we’ll have a look. We’ll go through each loom, make sure there’s no damage on the loom itself then we’ll plug them in and test them. Lamps might come out, when you’re taking them down they have a tendency to pop out, fix them. Anything not working, we’ll replace them.
Once the lights are off, Martin says another crew come to take down the tree, which is recycled.
“It’s mulched on site and then what they do is they send the mulch away into one of the parks where it’s put on the compost heap”.
The tree on O’Connell Street is also coming down later this week.
Its spot will be taken by a new flagpole which will be used during the commemorations for the 1916 rising.
