David’s donation – five acres to conserve for future

Land giveaways are rare in Ireland. Oliver Moore reports on the thinking behind octogenarian David Rowe’s decision to donate his entire five-acre holding in Co Carlow to a land trust.

DAVID ROWE is no typical landowner. Or, in his case, former landowner. This sprightly octogenarian, expert on many things rural, lives in Co Carlow without a phone or a car.

He has donated his entire holding to a land trust, to be conserved for future generations. “What David has donated is land in the form of five fields of species-rich grassland. It has a raised boundary bank of bushes, with a stream bordering one side,” said Nicola Winters of Green Sod Land Trust, the organisation to which David Rowe gave his land, at Red Bog, Clonmore, Co. Carlow.