Farmer: I didn’t know felled forts were monuments

A farmer who demolished two fairy forts on his farm days after buying the land has told a court that he did not know they were fairy forts or ring forts.

As for the 2m-high circles of boulders, 30m and 60m in diameter, being recorded monuments, he said he had never heard that term before.

Pat Desmond, aged 41, of Curraghclough, Lissarda, Co Cork, bought his sixth farm at Knockacareigh, Kilmurray, Macroom. Mr Desmond now has 485 acres across the six farms.

He said he had been farming since he was a child and said under cross-examination that he had never heard of any farmer ever getting into trouble for the demolition of such structures.

He told Judge Donagh McDonagh and a jury of 10 men and two women at Cork Circuit Criminal Court that if he had known the structures were recorded monuments or fairy forts he would not have gone next or near them.

He said he had already been penalised to the tune of €27,000, which was deducted from the Department of Agriculture’s single farm payment to him as a result of his actions in Jul 2009.

“My intention was to clean off scrub,” he testified.

Pat Desmond is on trial on two charges, namely the failure to notify the environment minister two months in advance of plans to perform works at the registered monuments on his land at Kilmurray. The defendant denied the two charges.

Prosecution barrister, Siobhán Lankford, outlined the alleged facts that the state would seek to prove against Mr Desmond.

Ms Lankford said: “You moved on to the farm on Jul 23, 2009, and these two fairy forts were gone on Jul 29.”

Mr Desmond said: “What is the point of your question?”

Ms Lankford said: “Two fairy forts were demolished in a six-day period, did you think they were a nuisance?”

The defendant replied: “I didn’t give any thought to them. I saw it as cleaning up scrub… I had no idea they were fairy forts and that they were protected structures.”

Ms Lankford suggested that it would have been clear to the defendant that the structures were there even before he bought the land and she asked him if he walked the land before spending more than €1.3m on this particular farm.

He said he did not walk it but he drove across it in a 4x4 and did not notice the structures and that nobody had brought them to his attention when he was buying the land.

The trial continues today at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.