A local city centre resident has described his disgust of discovering that birds at the Grand Canal Dock had been allegedly killed by a gang of youths.
The Common Terns are seabirds who graced our presence on the waters in large numbers this summer.
Kevin Maguire said that the birds are a "wonderful species to watch" and despite efforts being made to have the area where they reside cordoned off, all but one of the birds were apparently violently hit to death by the group.
He said: "There has been signs erected to keep out the public. This week, the birds were subject to vile behaviour by local youths who were swimming there.
"They killed all of the Terns except one by stoning them, throwing sandbags on them and trying to hit them with sticks on at least one occasion."
He added that the killings happened over the duration of last week and weekend.
"Young girls encouraged them on to kill the birds. The local gardai were alerted but obviously, these young boys were gone by the time they arrived."
Kevin managed to get a snap of one of the last remaining Terns on Friday as it "exercised its lovely, fluffy wings".
One resident said: "Shocking behaviour, can never understand why people would do this."
A second added: "That is so sad and infuriating. Humans can be such disgusting creatures."
A third commented: "This is beyond barbaric. When you see such cruelty as this you ask yourself what kind of people would do such a thing."
