One of the main attractions of Trinity’s city centre location is the respite it offers to anyone who steps inside its gates. Sprawling over just under 50 acres, Trinity’s grounds present a mammoth task to those employed by the College to keep everything looking as neat as possible. Responsible for the maintenance of all trees, shrubs, grass areas, pitches and indoor plantings, the Grounds and Garden team work tirelessly seven days a week to ensure that no blade of grass is out of place. This is what many people try to represent also in their own gardens, by using places like trugreen in california and other locations, to give off that perfect and pristine image that will appeal to others. It would be fair to imagine they use the best tools to maintain these beautiful grounds. Having the best leaf blowers to keep the pavements clear in autumn is probably a regular part of their kit. They might feature some leaf blowers from sites like Thebestleafblowers.com if you’re interested to learn more about the tools they could use. A reshuffling at the start of this year saw Anthony Dalton, formerly the Deputy Head of Security, take over the role of Campus Maintenance Manager, while David Hackett, who had been in the position, stepped into the position of Environmental Services Coordinator.
Both men have had long careers with Trinity. Dalton started working here when he was just 16, while Hackett previously held the position of Grounds and Garden Manager for 23 years. Life in Trinity has always been a family affair for Dalton. His father worked here before him, and it was on the grounds that he now cares for that he met his wife. This has resulted in a deep sense of loyalty to Trinity. Speaking to The University Times, Dalton explains that it’s his job to look at the grounds from an aesthetic point of view: “When I walk through the front gates, I look at it from the point of view that I’m a visitor walking through the gates for the first time. How would I look upon it? What do I look at? What do I see?”
Dalton’s role encompasses responsibility for all the hard and soft landscapes based on the main campus grounds, but also Trinity’s other sites scattered throughout the city. There is no typical day, with duties ranging from planting flowers in one area to cleaning a grease trap in another. Dalton has a team of 19 people working with him to ensure that everything is done to the highest of standards. “They really are great at their jobs”, explains Dalton. “There’s no doubt about that. I just do the administration end of it. They’re the people on the ground who do all the work.”
Any planting, particularly of trees, that you do, you will never see. Your children will never see them. It’s your grandchildren and great grandchildren who will start to see them looking as they should
Each person comes into the job with certain groundskeeping experience. It’s important to Dalton, however, that his team can feel like they can go further in this job if they want to. The College has previously offered support to one of the groundsmen so he could return to higher education and secure his degree in horticulture. Other staff members are given safety courses and training with relation to machinery used on site. Dalton wants to encourage more participation from his team: “There’s lads going around doing the same job day in and day out and they must say to themselves at certain points ‘why can’t we do it that way?’ But don’t actually say it.”
The nature of this job means that long-term planning is essential. Hackett is a qualified horticulturist who specialises in trees and grass types. Speaking to The University Times, he explains that looking after the magnificent trees of the College’s grounds isn’t something you do for your own benefit: “Any planting, particularly of trees, that you do, you will never see. Your children will never see them. It’s your grandchildren and great grandchildren who will start to see them looking as they should because the timescale is, you know, so long.”
The need for long-term planning has resulted in the creation of an outline of how the grounds are going to develop for the next 50 to 100 years. This is in place to ensure that whoever steps into the role next has an idea of the short and long-lived trees that have been planted. A 100-year-old beech tree can create enough oxygen to support three people for an entire year, so there’s no doubt that these are important living organisms that need careful tending. Working on the grounds, however, can be a dangerous job, with staff required to be on alert at all times as they use chainsaws, handsaws and secateurs to prune and shape the trees. “It’s kind of fun but it’s also dangerous”, explains Hackett. “You have that side of things to think about and keep you on your toes.”
We’re representing part of the College’s history in the planting, but we’re also representing modern cutting edge research
There has been very little major relandscaping of the grounds in recent years. A lot of the new additions have been designed in such a way that they blend in with the aesthetic already created within the grounds. One of the first major areas to be landscaped in the past 100 years is the College Physics Garden, down the east end of campus. Here, medicinal plants are grown that were used either at the time the botany, pharmacy and chemistry departments were set up 300 years ago or are being currently used in medical research. These departments are also attempting to synthetically recreate the plants so that they can be mass produced and given to people as cures for various illnesses. The teams working on these drugs have already had success in their field, with one particularly exciting development being the possibility of a new cancer drug which comes from a specific species of daffodil. “We’re representing part of the College’s history in the planting, but we’re also representing modern cutting edge research and things”, explains Hackett.
Hackett’s new position of Environmental Services Coordinator means that he is also responsible for ensuring that Trinity is as green as it possibly can be. This is done through a variety of measures. The roof of the Arts Block is home to several species of plants which control the release of rainwater to help reduce flooding. Water must first go through the plants and then the groin media before it hits storm drains. Hackett says this is all part of the living ecosystem of the College: “It’s all part of the entire campus as a living reusing ecosystem. That’s part of the whole thing that’s being looked at and being done. People don’t realise that we’re actually quite environmentally friendly.
Hackett would like to see the College do more to improve their environmental status. The College uses approximately 540 litres of water every minute. “It would be environmentally beneficial to the whole environment and to the water management of the whole city”, explains Hackett. The benefits wouldn’t just be to the College’s environmental status. It costs the College approximately €1.90 per cubic metre of water due to commercial costs. Hackett therefore insists that the financial benefits alone should convince the College to be more environmentally aware.
We’re lucky in that our waste contractor who handles our waste actually uses the waste that we’ll call landfill waste for energy purposes
One of the big problems for Hackett is the contamination of waste streams and a lack of awareness around what sort of materials should go in each bin. He points out that if you contaminate paper streams with mixed dry recyclables (plastics, metals, cardboards, tetra packs), it means that the paper is not fit for purpose and cannot be properly recycled. Hackett believes this is all very simple, and it can often be laziness which causes people not to pay attention to what they’re putting in each bin. For him, it’s all “simple stuff that you do at home”. Hackett hopes that the College can get to a position where 70 per cent of all waste is recycled, leaving a mere 30 per cent classified as “landfill”. Hackett says the College is lucky, however, as even the “landfill” waste is put to good use: “We’re lucky in that our waste contractor who handles our waste actually uses the waste that we’ll call landfill waste for energy purposes.”
The caring for the grounds is very much a team effort, with both Hackett and Dalton recognising this. Without the trojan work that goes on behind the scenes, Trinity wouldn’t have it’s reputation of an oasis in the middle of an otherwise bustling city. “You can’t work without the team”, says Dalton.
Correction: 12.21, October 18th, 2016
An earlier version of this piece referred to Anthony Dalton incorrectly. He is Anthony Dalton, not Anthony Daly.
