Donald Trump seeks permission for coastal protection works

Billionaire businessman Donald Trump wants to build a wall of rock armour along a stretch of the Irish Atlantic coast to stop the ocean blowing away his Doonbeg links course.

His Irish firm, which operates the luxury Doonbeg Golf Resort, is to shortly seek planning permission in a €10m plan to put in place around 200,000 tonnes of large boulders to prevent further erosion of the course along a 2.8km stretch at Doughmore beach facing onto the course.

The resort, on Clare’s Atlantic coast, last year lost substantial ground during the two winter storms at its sixth, ninth, and tenth holes, with the storms removing up to 10m of dune along the beach.