A caravan park, commonages, and CPOs: Dispute swirls between council and Achill Island landowners
Martin Calvey, a native of Keel, has lived there for practically all his 85 years, and is one of the owners of the commonage. Picture: Conor McKeown
Martin Calvey noticed the erection of telecommunication poles on the Sandybanks in recent weeks. He notes wryly that nobody asked him about putting them there. Calvey is one of over 500 registered owners of the commonage. Or at least, he is convinced that he is.
The wide expanse looks out on the Atlantic from the village of Keel on Achill Island. Ordinarily, owners might expect some notice or request for permission to put poles up on their land. Except in this case, Mayo County Council is claiming that it owns the land — not the local people.
When asked about the issue, a spokesperson for the council told the . “The land is owned by MCC as per a CPO carried out in 1970.” This statement is inaccurate and represents what some local people are calling a “landgrab” by the State.
An investigation by the has established that the council has repeatedly claimed ownership but whenever asked for proof, nothing has been produced. Despite claiming the lands were CPO'd, no compensation was paid to the existing owners and all the indications are that they were not even informed their land was being annexed.
While a CPO was signed in 1970, according to the Land Registry, the local people own the 400 acres at issue. The Department of Agriculture and the EU make REPS payments to the owners on the basis that they are using the land for grazing animals.
Yet the council continues to dispute ownership and has been pulling in an income of €20,000 per annum for renting some of the same land on which the farmers are getting REPS payments. The issue is coming to a head because the lease for a caravan park, for which the council receives its income, is due to be renewed.
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The council executive has been asked by the elected members to produce proof of ownership. And nothing has been produced.
Caught in the middle of all this are the operators of the caravan park. “We’ve had four brilliant years since we first won the lease when it came up,” Lisa Fitzsimons told the .
“We’ve made a life here and we don’t want to get caught up in the middle of all this.” If the conduct of the council today, and stretching back 56 years, is anything to go by, it may well be difficult to avoid serious grief.
The problem arises in the use of commonage, a form of ownership which is usually shared by a large number of farmers, primarily. The land is used largely for grazing rights.
This form of ownership accounted for up to 17,000 acres of unfenced land on Achill, dating back to the 19th century when communal grazing was common.
On the island there are around 200 active farmers who use their share for grazing but the remainder of owners still have rights and their share is tradable. Shares in commonage on Achill are traded relatively frequently.
The commonage looking out on the Atlantic at Keel is known as the Sandybanks. Its official title is the Achill Mission Estate and it accounts for 400 acres.
Back in 1970, Mayo County Council applied for a CPO for tracts of land on the island. These separate tracts were required for vital infrastructure.
There was a requirement for a reservoir, an upgrade of the water system, and a radio transmission station. Much of that earmarked land was on commonage, but none were planned for the Sandybanks.
Yet, the council also wanted to CPO the Sandybanks.
Martin Calvey, a native of Keel, has lived here for practically all his 85 years, and is one of the owners of the commonage. He remembers major concern among the landowners at the time. “We met in the Wavecrest hotel in Dooagh,” he says.
“There must have been over a hundred people there. A decision was made that practically everybody was against the CPO and a committee was picked to represent us.” According to Calvey, they heard nothing further about the Sandybanks.
There was an objection to another part of the proposed CPO. Local resident John Moran was to have some of his land taken for the infrastructure. He objected and a public hearing before a planning inspector was convened. The outcome of that saw Moran managing to safeguard his land and the proposal was adjusted.
However, in the course of the hearing, the matter of the Sandybanks was raised, according to documents seen by the . The solicitor for Mayo County Council told the inspector that the area in question was known as the “Keel Sandybanks” and incorporated “400 acres”.
“Over the years it has become a very popular resort for visitors with caravans, tents, and various touring equipment,” the solicitor submitted.
“By the end of 1968 it became obvious that something would have to be done… it was decided that a serviced caravan site should be provided and Mayo County Council decided to acquire the entire Sandybanks area to provide services.”
The solicitor pointed out that there were about 557 people in the commonage and that was why it had to be acquired through CPO. She added: “In actual fact, with regard to that place there are no objectors whatever and in view of that I don’t know if you want to hear any evidence."
“No,” the inspector replied. And with that ended any discussion on the Sandybanks. According to Martin Calvey, there were plenty of objectors.
That view would be confirmed years later when there were further plans for the commonage. Calvey is adamant that neither he nor any other shareholder in the commonage received compensation and there is no record of compensation in the file on the CPO.
The hearing was in June 1970. The local government minister Bobby Molloy signed the ministerial order to give force to the CPO three months later on October 7.
The use referenced for the CPO lands are stated as “acquisition lands for development, provision of refuse dump, radio transmission station, extension of water supply at Achill Island". (The refuse dump wasn’t mentioned previously and may be misworded).
There is no reference to a proposed caravan park. The council did not take legal possession of the land by registering its acquisition. According to maps and documents in the Land Registry, the commonage at Keel remains just that — owned by private interests.
Fourteen years after the CPO, a new caravan park was opened. However, the farmers' grazing continued in an ad hoc arrangement. The farmers didn’t object to the caravan park and the park operators were happy to allow the sheep take the air in the confines of the business.
Any doubts there may have been about ownership of the Sandybanks came to a head another 20 years down the line. In 2004, it emerged that Mayo County Council was intent on selling four acres of the Sandybanks to the Western Heath Board.
A local day care centre for the elderly, St Colman’s, was interested in acquiring a new premises. Somebody came up with the idea of a site on the Sandybanks.
Local farmers got word and kicked up blue murder. In May that year, a protest was organised outside the headquarters of the council in Castlebar. Martin Calvey’s daughter Helen wrote to national newspapers to complain about what was afoot.
“As a resident of Keel, Achill Island, Co Mayo, I feel I should bring to your readers' attention a matter of grave concern to the local community,” she wrote. “My grievance concerns an area known locally as The Sandybanks, a unique landscape to Ireland.
"It is an area of immense scenic beauty and a wildlife haven. It borders a beautiful Blue Flag beach and a picturesque lake lies within its domain. This area has been the topic of recent debate and there seems to be a question mark regarding ownership.
“The issue is clear to me. The land is registered by the Land Registry as commonage; 557 tenants own it and each of these individual tenants have grazing rights on this valuable land. These tenants use this land to claim their REPS and area aid, as is their entitlement.
“However, their rights are in peril as Mayo County Council is laying claim to the ownership of this land. Its claim dates back to 1970 when it says, under a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO), it acquired these titles.
"This is the subject of much controversy in Keel as locals disagree. They were never informed of this CPO and no list of CPO payments were made.”
Despite these protests, the council voted to go ahead with the sale of the land, as reported by the .
“Mayo County Council has agreed to dispose of a four acres site at Keel Sandybanks in Achill to the Western Health Board for the establishment of a €2m day care centre for the elderly,” the newspaper reported.
It said that a decision to sell the land to the health board “was pushed through before a packed public gallery of over 40 protesters” in Castlebar. “The council now intend to assert their title to the land by way of a vesting order which will have to be advertised in the local press and to which objections can be made.”
The meeting also heard from the county manager, Des Mahon, that a ministerial order had been signed for the CPO 24 years earlier in 1970. That was correct.
However, he also claimed that compensation had been paid to five trustees on behalf of the landowners. Nobody present knew who they were or what money was paid. There is no mention of this in the CPO file.
In any event, there was no vesting order and the purchase didn’t go through. Neither was legal claim made on the commonage by the council. As far as the Land Registry was concerned, the 557 local people retained ownership.
It is unclear why the project didn’t proceed, but if it did it would have brought the issue of ownership front and centre.
For the last 40 years, a number of the farmers have been in receipt of REPS farm payments on the basis that this is their land and it is being used for grazing animals. The council has been in receipt of an annual rent from successive operators of the caravan park on the same land.
In 2022, a new operator took over the caravan park. Michael and Lisa Fitzsimons moved to Keel, having been frequent visitors for years prior to that. They won the contract for the park and expanded and upgraded facilities.
Then in 2025, a problem arose. As previously reported in the , Martin Calvey was denied entry to the caravan park. Understandably, the operators wanted power over entry to their business premises. The outcome saw ownership of the Sandybanks called into question once again.
At last February’s monthly meeting of the council, the elected members were asked to ratify a new lease for the caravan park for the current operators. This resulted in a motion to delay any such renewal until ownership of the Sandybanks was properly determined.
According to the minutes of the meeting, the motion read: “That Mayo County Council defer this item and provide full title deeds to the meeting”.
Following that, Mayo County Council requested the file on the CPO from the Department of Housing. The file was copied and retained in Castlebar but the elected members have not been presented with the deeds, showing ownership of the lands. Such deeds simply don’t exist.
When the asked the council whether the deeds had been presented as per the motion, it responded:
The response doesn’t make sense. If the executive of Mayo County Council was unaware of the councillors' motion, then why, at this point, 56 years on, did they seek to access the file from the Department of Housing?
Over the last two months, the has submitted a number of questions about commonage to the council. The answers all relate back to the claim that the council has owned the lands since 1970.
Certainly, a ministerial order was signed to that effect, but the council never transferred ownership, and according to Martin Calvey, it never informed the existing owners that the process was advancing.
The most pressing issue is the renewal of the lease for the caravan park. As things stand that can’t happen until the councillors ratify it and they are waiting on proof of ownership.
For Lisa Fitzsimons and her husband Michael, the future they had planned is unclear. “We are in contract with Mayo County Council,” Ms Fitzsimons said when asked about the status of their lease renewal.
“We’re caught in the middle of this and Mayo County Council is in the process of issuing us with a new lease.”
She declined to say any more about issues around the lease and ownership of the land. “We want to stay on and we don’t want to get caught in the middle of all this,” she said.
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