‘I want my house back’

A FABULOUS autumn morning was the backdrop to a terrible scene in Westport’s Páirc na Coille on Friday.

The serenity of splendid sunshine was shattered by the gut-wrenching clamour of smashing slates and snapping timber, and the obliteration of concrete blocks that were condemned from the moment they left the quarry.

The digger operator calmly went about the difficult but wholly necessary job of demolishing a house that would eventually have crumbled by itself if pyrite was left to do its work.

Watching on in the perishing cold are Linda, Tia, Sasha and Rhys Claxton.

They’ve lived here since 2002. On Friday, they joined the hundreds of other Mayo people who have been forced to rebuild their homes because of the pyrite scourge.

The Claxtons’ house, which stood for over 20 years, will take at least six months to rebuild.

Contrast that with the length it took to knock it. The first slates fall from the roof into Linda’s beloved garden at 8.30am. At 9.23am, the digger falls silent, casting a sombre shadow over the ruins of a family home.

Nobody is quite sure what to say initially.

“It’s our house, we lived there,” Sasha remarks with remorse and bewilderment.

Her 14-year-old sister, Tia, is standing frozen on the footpath wearing two jumpers. One of the pockets contains a makeup brush, false eyelashes and other little beauty products that she’s salvaged from her destroyed home.

They’ve found accommodation in Kylemore; a three-bedroom house owned by a work colleague of Linda’s.

Getting Tia to school now means leaving their new house shortly after 7am to get the 8am bus from Westport to Sancta Maria College in Louisburgh.

“I don’t really think about it that much. I just don’t want to go to school. I want my house back,” says Mia.

Wise beyond her years, she is confident about where the blame for her eviction lies. “No one should have to go through that because of a government mistake.”

‘Horrible’

LINDA herself is going through the mill.

As well as getting her daughter to and from school and working a day job, Linda has bypassed a builder and appointed herself as project manager to reduce her costs.

Even despite this, even when taking the pyrite redress scheme into account, she could still be liable for at least €70,000 to rebuild what she had – on top of an outstanding mortgage on a pile of ruins.

“The quarries have got away with it,” Linda says. “Not a thing being done to them, but yet I have to pay out nearly €100,000 to rebuild this and pay a mortgage off. Where is the justice in that?”

The hardest part of it all was Thursday evening, when they shut the front door and walked away with the last of their belongings after five trips over and back to Kylemore.

“That was horrible,” recalls Mia.

“Wednesday was the last night we slept in it. We knew it was the last time sleeping in that house,” adds Linda. “I’ve so many memories from the last 20 years of my life. My kids, born and reared in there, and look; it’s rubble.”

Despite it all, they’re still able to crack the odd joke.

“You’re late!” remarks Linda when one tradesman pulls up just after the house was levelled.

Sasha, her oldest daughter, turned 20 on the day her home was flattened before her eyes. How can she possibly celebrate in such horrendous circumstances? “House party!” she jokes.

Linda tries to see the bright side on one of the darkest days of her life.

“I have a lot of memories in that house,” says Tia.

Her mother responds with a promise.

“When it’s rebuilt, we’ll start making new memories.”