Cafe gets go-ahead on Great Blasket
The State has been trying to acquire the abandoned Great Blasket for almost 30 years.
It has already made €8.5 million available to buy and develop the spectacular island as a heritage park. There may also be an application for UNESCO World Heritage Site status.
Plans for the cafe by Blascaod Mór Teo (BMT) — the company that owns most of the island’s 1,100 acres — were the subject of a three-day Bord Pleanála hearing in Dingle last August.
BMT had made it clear it would not sell the island unless it was granted planning for the 50-seat cafe and supporting facilities including a septic tank, toilets, staff areas, and a first aid and ranger room.
BMT director Peter Callery, a Dingle solicitor, yesterday welcomed the planning decision but said the ruined village on the island had suffered dreadfully over the years.
He said the village, where many of the island’s writers lived, had deteriorated in recent years and he would be worried about it if there were further delays with plans for the island.
Officials from the Office of Public Works told the August hearing they wanted the core village taken into State care and preserved for the nation. There were four appellants against a Kerry County Council decision to give planning for the cafe — Sue Redican, part-owner of a property on the abandoned island, ferry operator Michael Sheeran, Virginia Brownlow and Britta Wilkens.
They believed the famous literary island, lying three miles off the Dingle Peninsula, should be left much as it was when evacuated in 1953. They also claimed a cafe and toilets for the use of visitors would not be in keeping with future Government plans and EU environment regulations.
After the hearing, Ms Redican, who has contacted EU Environment Commissioner Starvros Dimas, said she would consider taking a case to the High Court, or to Europe, if planning was granted.
Birdwatch Ireland raised concerns about the effects of development on large colonies of seabirds on the island, warning that if rats got onto boats bringing in building materials for the café, they could harm the island’s ground-nesting birds.
The purchase price of the island is understood to be €3m while the building of piers on the island and at Dunquin, on the mainland, would cost several million.
In reaching its decision, Bord Pleanála said it took into consideration the Kerry County Development Plan, which provided for limited visitors on the island. It also maintained the cafe would not have a “significant adverse effect” on the island’s amenities, or an adjoining protected structure.
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