Farming couple faces 70-mile commute

LONG-DISTANCE farming wasn’t what Bernadette and Gerald Sheehan had in mind when they bought 160 acres of land in coastal west Cork 10 years ago.

But since then, while their sheep have spent the summers grazing the rugged, rocky moorland that characterises the wildly beautiful terrain, the Sheehans have enjoyed only visiting rights.

The Sheehans live at Burnfoot, near Mallow, 70 miles away in the north of the county where they have farmed for 30 years.

In 1998 they sold most of that land to Readymix for a sand and gravel quarry, willed the remaining 25 acres and family home to their only son, Edward, bought replacement land in Durrus on the western Sheep’s Head peninsula and planned to move lock, stock, livestock and barrell to the new farm.

Although the area is of great scenic beauty and an obvious target for planning restrictions, the Sheehans met much of the criteria for development by being landowners and active farmers. With the ruins of an old two-storey house already on the land, they thought they would have no problem getting permission to build a single-storey home there. They thought wrong.

The first planner from Cork County Council who assessed their application turned them down so they sought a meeting to see how they could address his concerns. A different planner was assigned to them and indicated there should be no problem getting permission with a few tweaks in design, so they applied again but a third planner assessed the application and turned them down.

The Sheehans sought another meeting and met yet another planner who concluded they should be entitled to permission. On the basis of that assurance, another planner walked the land and agreed the most appropriate site.

It wasn’t where Bernadette and Gerald wanted to build — they had their hearts set on a sea view — but they were content to compromise and move further inland if it meant getting permission. But a sixth planner assessed their application and turned them down.

By that time they had agreed a house design with the planning department, pledged to install a sophisticated sewage disposal and waste water recycling system and even offered to erect a wind turbine for green energy as they and Edward are involved in a wind farm enterprise.

They volunteered to have a sterilisation order attached, ensuring they could not make further applications on the surrounding land, and offered to be bound by a Section 47 order, requiring the house to be their permanent residence. “We bent over backwards to meet every requirement for them and still we were turned down,” says Gerald.

Their luck turned, albeit briefly, when the county manager overruled the planning official and permission was granted, but An Taisce successfully appealed to An Bord Pleanála and once more the Sheehans were back at square one.

“There doesn’t seem to be any sense in the planning system if one planner can say everything’s ok and another can say no way. There’s no consistency.”

It bothers them that since their battles began, a much larger house has been built on adjoining land and was immediately put up for sale without ever being lived in. “No -one objected to it, including myself, and no conditions were attached to it despite all the talk about wanting people to live where they build. Yet myself and Bernie are committed to the area — we’ve been going there for years — and we can’t build.”

He sees other inconsistencies in the system. There are some very large, very conspicuous farm buildings nearby — an An Bord Pleanála report refers to their obtrusive nature — yet they are exempted development.

“The one thing that keeps being brought up, is that it’s a scenic area and we can be seen from the road. We could be seen from a small section of the road at the start but we put down trees when we first bought the land — we have 70 acres of forestry — and now you can’t see the site at all. And what’s wrong with being seen anyway? Have we to hide ourselves? There are records that show 1,000 people lived in that area before the famine and it’s considered a terrible thing that everyone died or left but now it’s a terrible thing to try to repopulate.

“In fairness, it’s not as if we were building a hotel. JP McManus, a man I have great admiration for, was allowed build a 40,000 sq ft mansion [in Co Limerick] and he’s out of the country half the time. I have no problem with that, but how does it make sense that I can’t build a small farmhouse to live in full-time?”

Gerald believes his age will work against him in any future applications. “I’m 68 now — although I was 58 when all this started. They doubt that I want to continue farming but I’m very active and you don’t really ever retire from farming. Myself and Bernie can easily look after the sheep and the forestry looks after itself. As it is, we’re driving 70 miles back and forth to Durrus in the summer to see to the sheep. We could keep them here all year round but we have to graze the land with something. We bought the land to farm and they’re at us to prove we’re farmers, so that’s what we’ll do.”

If they were to give up their dreams of living in Durrus and sell the land, it would almost certainly have to be to an existing resident. “People would know now from our experience that you would not get planning permission — it wouldn’t be a help trying to sell it.”

Gerald is critical of the composition of the 10-member decision-making board of An Bord Pleanála which, he says, fails to accurately represent the varied interests of Irish society. “If you had a representative of the Irish Farmers’ Association or the Irish Rural Dwellers’ Association, you would get broader views. The board consists of no person from rural Ireland and that’s undemocratic.”