Hill-walking debate

“The death-knell of the self-sufficient, small stone-pocked west of Ireland farm had truly tolled”

Speaker’s Corner
Áine Ryan

SOME TIME last summer I was sitting in McCabe’s kitchen at the harbour on Clare Island when a man walked past the window, stood over a large geranium pot and relieved himself. It was shortly before noon, the ferry had just berthed and the elderly hill-walker had apparently been so short-taken, he didn’t have time to knock on the door and request use of the facilities.
The incident brought to mind a rather incensed letter I wrote to the Irish Times, almost 20 years ago, about a documentary series on hill-walking, one programme of which was filmed on Clare Island. From what I can recall, I ranted in my best tongue-in-cheek irony about the middle-class urban hordes heading off west on their safaris, marvelling at the scenery, the rich heritage and that curious species of homo sapiens, commonly called islanders. Tally-ho chaps, and all that.
At that stage, hill-walking was a relatively new pastime in this country. And farmers, the owners of these hills (ref: Michael Davitt and the Land league) had, in the previous decade or so, become enslaved by so-called subsidy cheques, EU threats of butter mountains, milk lakes and amphitheatres full of mutton and beef. Of course, this was soon to be imperceptibly replaced by another, on the face of it, contradictory policy: REPS (Rural Environment Protection Schemes) and SACs (Special Areas of Conservation). Suddenly, a short-sighted EU ivory tower policy that directly led to the overgrazing of vast tracts of poor lands was to be replaced by a rigorous regime of conservation.
The death-knell of the self-sufficient, self-sustaining small stone-pocked west of Ireland farm had truly tolled. Centuries of medieval landlordism, notwithstanding a short reprieve, had been firmly replaced by a new absentee task-master, happily living in high-rise buildings in Brussels.
Almost five years ago, a Mayo farmer, John Gerard Burke, was cleared of allegedly assaulting a Dublin hill-walker, with Judge Mary Devins ruling that, despite a technical assault, there were sufficient mitigating circumstances. Mr Burke’s land is at Uggool beach, on the Mayo edge of the mouth of Killary harbour. It has been the subject of one of the longest-running access disputes in the country and brought before the Ombudsman.
Two comments by Judge Devins remain central to the deep chasm that continues to divide walking and farming organisations. During this case, she opined that ‘beautiful areas do not have to give every voyager right of access’ and, moreover, the defendant appeared to feel ‘that property rights did not exist outside the Pale’.
While a recent Irish Times editorial concedes, on the one hand, that ‘private property rights are important’ and ‘should be protected’, it then jumps to the moral high-ground arguing ‘the public good [clearly hill-walkers and not farmers] has to take precedence when these interests conflict’.
Economic argument is used also to bolster the moral stance. Our economy is suffering by a 20 per cent drop in walkers coming to Ireland. Such holidays generate around €200 million in tourism revenue. And, anyway, isn’t the farmer going to benefit by a €6.8 million package towards the development of farms and rural communities in the coming years.
Recently Minister Éamon Ó Cuív announced, much to the annoyance of the IFA, that an expert group has reported that the State can legislate to allow access to land for recreational purposes without giving landowners a right to seek compensation.
So, what precisely do our legislators want? Is it alright if you wear designer walking-gear and talk with a D-four accent to pee in a rural garden pot and traverse private property?  And is it simultaneously alright to defend your property with a rifle, as Mayo farmer Padraig Nally did,  and shoot intruders, particularly if they are travellers?