Owners fence Lissadell House with barbed wire and boulders

THE owners of Lissadell House have secured it with barbed wire wrapped around poles and there are boulders blockading access to the Yeats Museum in a separate coach-house.

The protective measures were introduced by lawyers Edward Walsh and Constance Cassidy to safeguard their own property in the days after a High Court ruling confirmed the existence of public rights of way.

Within hours of the court decision in Christmas week, roads through the Co Sligo estate, including one passing right by the house, were opened to the public.

By the new year, although the roads continued to remain open, barbed wire wrapped around steel and wooden poles lying length- ways and raised about two feet, and boulders were put in place to protect the private property beside the thoroughfares, giving a Colditz-like atmosphere.

The strengthened security gives added impetus to fears that Lissadell is unlikely to be reopened as a tourism attraction by Mr Walsh and his wife Ms Cassidy.

Mr Walsh said yesterday that the protective measures are temporary. He intends erecting more permanent security around the house and the coach-house.

He refused to add to his after-court statement of December 20 that his dream for Lissadell was over.

He said then that the family couldn’t run the estate with public rights of way adding to issues of security, insurance and maintenance. He thought the state might consider stepping in and taking it over.

He is understood to have remained firm about his ‘dream’ being over, although he is still considering an appeal against the High Court decision, The Walsh-Cassidy family reckon a weekend of Leonard Cohen and Westlife concerts last summer, as well as a brief reopening of Lissadell as a tourist attraction until October, brought €15 million to €20m into the Sligo and Donegal area last year.

They estimate up to €30m a year could be brought to the north-west with more concerts and full operation of the estate as a tourist attraction.

But already, plans for a concert this year appear to have been shelved and there has been no attempt at negotiating a solution between the Walsh/Cassidy family and Sligo County Council.

The couple purchased the property, the former childhood home of Countess Constance Markievicz, for €4m in 2003 and spent a further €9.5m restoring the house and gardens.

A row flared between the owners and the council over rights of way and Mr Justice Bryan McMahon found in favour of Sligo County Council that rights of way had existed — but only during daylight hours — for many years by virtue of acquiescence by previous owners.

Mr Walsh faces a massive €6m legal bill over the action.