Tiger left heavy pawprint in villages

NOW that the Celtic Tiger has died, the post mortems focus on the economic and property collapses, but the spotlight is beginning to be put on the Tiger’s physical effects on the landscape of Ireland.

A decade ago, as the Tiger roared into life, both the urban and rural landscape quickly changed. At the time, there was a little-heeded warning at the Heritage Council’s first landscape conference, from Fred Aalen, former geography professor at TCD, that “serious damage to our landscape and the environment must be anticipated when dynamic economic growth occurs”.

Since then, Ireland’s landscape has witnessed dynamic economic growth. The big question is whether we were well enough equipped to prevent serious damage to the landscape and environment.

This will be the key issue at another landscape conference, being held by the council in Tullamore, Co Offaly, on October 14-16. Heritage Council chief executive, Michael Starrett, says we are in a dramatically changed situation. “It is not now so much a 10-year review, but also an opportunity to set a 10-year plan,” he says. “I would, however, be shirking my responsibility if I didn’t say that we were, in fact, woefully ill-equipped to deal with the pace of development and that serious damage has been done to our landscape.” Starrett cites two examples, while stressing that the conference is also intended to be optimistic.

Firstly, one-off housing in the countryside. Parts of the country are in a mess of different designs and poorly situated housing. That is because of a lack of national guidelines on how change can be planned.

“It has all just been allowed to happen. The creeping change in character of huge parts of our rural landscape has been insidious,” he says.

“As a result, the loss in quality of that landscape — something of real economic and social value to the country as a whole — has been substantial. Just how substantial we are not sure, because we are not equipped to find out.”

Moving from rural to urban change, Starrett says we only have to drive through provincial towns and villages to see that large ‘bolt-on’ housing estates, with few or any facilities to improve the quality of life of the people who reside there, have sprung up like mushrooms.

“Unfortunately, there are many examples of bad village development and few good. Our system has relied not on good and clear guidance at a national level, but rather on the professional ability of individuals to plan for our landscapes correctly. Relying on individuals, professional or otherwise, is no way to plan a country.”

The conference will showcase major landscape initiatives. Speakers from Bere Island, the Burren, and the Wicklow uplands, to name three, will detail their community-led landscape initiatives and the agricultural sector will also be well-represented.

The conference will also feature speakers from Europe and Canada, who will outline how they have responded to landscape management challenges they have faced, many of which are very similar to those in this country.

There will also be presentations from the Environment Minister, John Gormley, Maguellone Dejeant-Pons, from the Council of Europe, and Prof Richard Forman, the renowned landscape ecologist from Harvard University.

The Government is committed to a national landscape strategy and the conference is expected to make a contribution to such a strategy.

Meanwhile, entirely different views will be voiced at the Irish Rural Dwellers’ Association (IRDA) annual conference, in Brehon Hotel, Killarney, on Wednesday and Thursday (April 22-23) of this week.

Since its formation in 2001, the IRDA has campaigned for the “repopulation of rural Ireland and the right of all citizens to choose their place of residence, whether it be urban or rural”, says PRO John Kelly.

The IRDA also claims that, in an era of urbanisation, planning authorities are determined to ban rural housing all over the country. It calls for solidarity with rural people and organisations “to save our rural culture and way of life”.

However, rather than having to service houses scattered around the countryside, it’s much more efficient from a planner’s viewpoint to centralise housing in areas where services already exist, or where it is easy to provide services. And that’s the way things are going.

The word from county councillors is that it is becoming more difficult all the time to get planning for one-off houses.

Speakers at the IRDA conference will include Prof Seamus Caulfield, who will address the issue of rural housing guidelines; Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Eamon Ó Cuiv; Kathy Sinnott, MEP; Cllr Dan O’Rourke, Cork County Council; former GAA president, Sean Kelly; and Macra na Feirme president, Catherine Buckley.