Access - Irish Awake.

weedavie, the author of this article is from Scotland but has much experience of walking in Ireland.

Irishmen and women awake! Your birthright’s being trampled on and the hills are free no more! Ah, so there we go then, a scenario from any time in the 18th century. I’m a foreign agitator with the loosest idea of the facts trying to get a native rebellion under way. Well the French used you and let you down and so did the Spanish. Now it’s the Scots, but, hey, I’ll be with you in spirit.

What follows is going to be shallow and ill-informed, but it’s going to be sincere. Now what could be a more dangerous combination than that? Still, I’ve some credentials. I’ve been walking off and on in Ireland since the sixties, with one massive gap. I’m an obsessive walker in Scotland and I’ve a reasonable amount of experience in England and to a lesser extent Wales. In that time I’ve lectured extensively until I’ve been thrown out of the pub.

All of which qualifies me to tell you you’ve a problem. From my own experience, from my reading, and from enjoying Irish walkers input to the Mountain Views website, I can see that access to the hills is less certain than ever. You appear to recognise this in individual tales without pulling it together into something to act on. Let me grab at a few straws in the wind. I walk a lot in the Twelve Pins, but in Spring or Autumn, and part of their charm then is that I never meet anyone on the hills.
Twelve BensWhen I’ve bumped into farming folk in the glens, it’s been a cheery greeting or heavy sarcasm if the weather’s foul. Now I’ve read Tim Robinson’s Connemara and he talks of times in summer when parties are heading off round Gleann Chochan every twenty minutes, some of them led by paid guides. His point is that where previously there would have been a simple welcome, there is now fear about responsibility, annoyance about damage to fences and envy of the money being made. Again, walking round Gougane Barra this year I came across a sign barring access in unfriendly terms. The lady in the pub told us it had been put up by a cantankerous ould devil but he was gone now. She also told us that they owned much of the ground we’d crossed that day. They’d no objections to access but it was by their permission not by right. They also wanted to see insurance for group access. This comes back to the fear of responsibility, even though I believe there’s only been one farmer who lost a case to suing by a walker and this was reversed on appeal. Yet walking out to Three Castles beyond Mizzen Head we saw on every fence notices reminding you that access was specifically under legislation that allowed leisure walkers access at their own risk. Another sign of a breakdown is a contribution on Mountain Views from a horseman who was told by the farmer that the access he was enjoying on his four legged friend would be unconditionally withdrawn if he turned up himself on two legs. Trespassing SignFinally, walking on the Cork-Kerry border I encountered a farmer who was charging to walk up his glen to see the ancient monuments. We hadn’t been there but as we dropped from the ridge by his farm, he hit us up too.

I found the last case the most serious (I mean it cost us 8 Euros.) If farmers start seeing us as an income stream then this behaviour could spread fast. Simon Stewart disagrees – neither Europe nor the Gadarene Swine in Leinster House want this to happen. However I’m not clear what powers they’ve got to stop it. I can’t see someone putting a toll on Carrantouhil but it would be quite possible on somewhere less frequented like Gleann Chochan. I’m writing this on a pay-beach in Sicily. It’s a model you’d think governments and tourist-boards would abhor, but it’s the standard operation in Italy. You pay to get on the beach. It could happen to your hills.

So there’s my description of the problem. What do I feel is the solution and what steps need to be taken? Ideally you’d want the Scottish model of full right of access with responsibility, but it’d be a long way down the line and maybe doesn’t fit your human geography. Our current legislation is built on a long time de facto right of access – trespass is not a criminal offence in Scottish law. The 2003 act codified a lot of this. Apart from dwelling places, landowners must allow access. Gates should not be locked unless a stile or similar is provided. Walkers should respect land usage and management and cause no damage. Access is at your own risk. Glen EtiveIt seems to be working, generally. There is one estate in Glen Etive that was notorious for its locked gate on the bridge over the River Coupall. I hear it’s no longer locked but they have released a pack of wild dogs. On the other hand significant numbers of walkers couldn’t tell you when the stag-hunting season runs or how to cooperate with it. But with far more examples of people cooperating on both sides, it seems a successful piece of legislation.

Would it work for Ireland? It’d be a long road to travel. A factor against it is our different patterns of habitation. Most of Scotland’s inhabitants are crammed into the central belt. The Highlands and the Borders are empty in a way that’s uncommon in Ireland. There’s more people in Mayo and Galway than in the entire Highlands and Islands. This means access here causes less disruption and seldom involves crossing farmland. We’ve simply less scope for conflict. Conflict when it comes is more likely with the quads and bikes which appear to be a curse on the Wicklow Hills too.

So maybe we’re looking at the English model (and here my lack of research leaves me a bit shaky.) There appear to be two useful elements. One is a network of rights of way which has been zealously mapped and defended over the years. This can be ludicrous, the local Ramblers Association defending the way between the dump and the canal through the sewage work. It can also be critical, fighting an industrial farm removing hedges and paths to create a super-field. There has also been specific legislation in 2004 which has created areas (now totalling 6% of the total area of the country) where there is a responsible right to roam. I think this is a set-up you could target, rights of way to get you through farmland, freedom to roam on moorland and mountain.

You’ll definitely have to fight for it. Talking to farmers, I’ve been surprised at the depth of feeling on the responsibility issue. The legislation needs to be clear and fully understood. Defining, recording and defending rights of way is hard work. Fighting for access legislation means convincing politicians there’s votes in it. That could involve fights on local issues but members of online forums like MV could run an e-campaign. It could come to mass trespass, which was a tool that the English used. That Cork-Kerry pay-per-view glen might be a good start. Get RTE watching as three hundred walkers refuse to pay their 4 Euros. Above all it’s like being an alcoholic – you’ll first have to admit you’ve got a problem.

Anyway, don’t expect me to lead the revolution – I had my experiences in the 70s. I was a joiner’s labourer in the builders’ strike in 1972. I turned up one morning for work to be told I was on picket. We asked a lorry not to come in but the driver was having none of it. I saw myself as a Soviet hero. “Brothers, we can push him back.” Well we did but he dropped a gear and came on again. Someone threw a half brick which bounced from his windscreen and clipped me on the shoulder. It hurt, so half an hour later I’d joined a flying picket then given it the slip and was back in bed. Towards the end of the 70s when the Clash and the rest of us middle class white boys were identifying with the front-line in Brixton, a bunch of us took a trip from Holyhead to Dublin, £5 return and a litre of duty-free spirits thrown in. A Dublin taxi-strike saw us back to Dun Laighore early, then the boat was late. They were slow in letting us through the barrier even then and my brother took it on himself to raise the Jacquerie. His battle cry was “Come on, you English wunkers.” Well even if that had been a good description they may not have followed him, but it wasn’t. They were Welsh chapel folk and he spent the voyage hiding in the lifeboat. Best wishes with your revolution, let me know how it goes.