Room with a view... soon with pylon 30m from kitchen

The first John McHale knew about EirGrid’s plan to put a pylon “30m from the kitchen window” was when he opened a copy of the Western People newspaper last October.

John lives with his wife Rita and their two daughters on the 15 acres of land the family owns in Currabaggan near Ballina in Mayo.

However, on Oct 7, he opened the Western People to see that EirGrid’s preferred route would see a pylon erected on his land, just metres from his home as part of the Grid West section of the €3.2bn Grid25 project.

He says: “There had been meetings earlier in the year but they were pure rubbish. You were shown 12 different lines, so if you asked if you were on one, you were told it could be moved or be in another place. Nobody took much notice.

“Then on Oct 7, I opened the Western People and the preferred route was published with a pylon planned just 30m from the kitchen window. That was the first time I was notified about it going on my land.

“At 4.30pm on the same day, we had a letter put through the door. That was all the consultation we got.”

Not only does the route go through John’s land, it also goes through his brother Dermot’s property. Another brother, Michael James, will also have a pylon 100m from his home. Micheal James has mild special needs and the family had only last year received planning permission to build a house for him so he could be near his family.

Speaking from Kuwait, where he works as a farm manager for periods of the year, John says people were angry at the way EirGrid had bypassed the concerns of ordinary people.

“I put a lot of effort and sacrifice coming out here to provide for my family. It’s an emotional wrench having to leave your children to get on the train. I put everything I have into that place in north Mayo so that I can have a little bit of peace when I retire and they’ve ruined it for me. I never speculated or gambled but just because some guy drew a red line on a map across my land, they’ve ruined that place for me.”

John says people and communities were now trying to organise resistance to EirGrid’s plan but felt that plans may already be too far down the track.

“Ordinary people trying to run a home and keep a family are now scrambling to get to meetings to take on a huge organisation. It’s pitiful,” he says.

“We’re not fundamentalists or tree huggers. We don’t want publicity or our pictures in the paper. We’re just ordinary people forced to do this.”