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Pro-hunting campaign may have to return donations
A pressure group that is campaigning against the proposed ban on stag hunting and the introduction of new animal welfare legislation may be forced to return donations worth thousands of euros.

Rural Ireland Says Enough (Rise), set up by hunting organisations in January, has been contacted by the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipoc) which believes it needs to register as a political group involved in lobbying the government.

The 1997 Electoral Act requires any group that engages in political lobbying to register, and prohibits them from accepting single donations of more than €6,348 in a calendar year.

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Pro-hunting campaign may have to return donations
Posted By Tony Lowes on 20/04/2010 ( Reads : 180 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Leading jockey says proposed ban on stag-hunting 'has to be stopped'
ON THE eve of the Cheltenham Festival, one of Ireland's leading jockeys, Ruby Walsh has said the proposed ban on stag-hunting "has to be stopped".

He has sharply criticised the Government's proposed new law - expected to be published next month - as "just the tip of the iceberg" of an anti field-sports agenda.

Before leaving for Cheltenham, Walsh (31) expressed his concern to The Irish Times that the ban could lead to other rural pursuits such as "fox-hunting, shooting, angling and point-to-point" racing being outlawed. "This is a bigger issue than stag-hunting and has to be stopped before it gathers momentum."

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Leading jockey says proposed ban on stag-hunting 'has to be stopped'
Posted By Tony Lowes on 15/03/2010 ( Reads : 256 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Clare stalactite cave to get visitor centre
THE PROMOTERS of Pol an Ionain cave in north Clare, which contains reputedly the largest free-hanging stalactite in the world, yesterday secured planning permission for a visitor centre at the site.
An Bord Pleanála yesterday gave the plan the go-ahead in the face of opposition from An Taisce, the Pol an Ionain Action Group and the nearby rival cave, Ailwee Cave.
Three years ago, the cave owners, John and Helen Browne, opened the cave to allow the public to view the 23ft-long stalactite after a 16-year long planning battle. However, the permission by An Bord Pleanála precluded any visitor centre and the public has been bused to the cave site through a park-and-ride system.

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Clare stalactite cave to get visitor centre
Posted By Tony Lowes on 02/10/2009 ( Reads : 513 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Newgrange solstice winners

Fifty lucky winners were drawn from 32,955 entries to be inside the chamber at the winter solstice at Newgrange this year.
The winners, who are from all over the world, along with a partner, will have the chance to see the passage and chamber of the 5,000- year-old mound illuminated this year.
Children from three local schools picked this year's winners.

(c) Irish Independent 26.09.09

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Newgrange solstice winners
Posted By Tony Lowes on 28/09/2009 ( Reads : 539 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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North Sligo walking row rumbles on despite Minister Cuiv’s visit
THE ongoing row over access for hill walking in north Sligo looks set to continue despite a visit to the area yesterday, Monday, evening by a government minister.

Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Eamon Ó Cuív visited Ballintrillick to meet Andy McSharry, who has been one of the most militant anti hill walking landowners in the area.

He is now apparently willing to participate in a scheme to develop a walking trail on Benwiskin mountain but other landowners are angry that they have not been consulted.

While it was reported that Minister O’Cuiv was in Sligo to actually open a walk, a spokesperson at his department made it clear that this was not the case.

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Friends of the Irish Environment - North Sligo walking row rumbles on despite Minister Cuiv’s visit
Posted By Tony Lowes on 25/09/2009 ( Reads : 592 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Hills alive as 17-year walker row resolved
THE hills were alive with the sound of trails re-opening in one of Ireland's most spectacular beauty spots yesterday as a bitter stand-off between a landowner and hillwalkers was finally resolved.
For the past 17 years, Sligo farmer Andy McSharry, who called himself The Bull McSharry after the John B Keane character in 'The Field', waged war against hillwalkers who trespassed his land in the shadow of Ben Bulben mountain.
Mr McSharry, who served a jail term in 2004 after refusing to pay a fine following a conviction for threatening hill walkers, posted signs everywhere and patrolled his land on a quad to keep walkers out.

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Hills alive as 17-year walker row resolved
Posted By Tony Lowes on 22/09/2009 ( Reads : 621 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Doonbeg right of way extinguished

The members of Clare County Council last night voted overwhelmingly to end a long-running dispute with Doonbeg golf club by extinguishing a contentious right of way. At the council's adjourned September meeting, councillors voted 22 to three in favour of extinguishing the right of way.
The move ends the public's ability to walk across the fourth and 14th fairways at the Greg Norman-designed Doonbeg golf course to Doughmore beach.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

© Irish Times

 

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Doonbeg right of way extinguished
Posted By Tony Lowes on 22/09/2009 ( Reads : 554 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Access to Old Head of Kinsale
Madam, - This summer our family spent a holiday near Kinsale. We wanted to visit the Old Head but were amazed to find that to view the lighthouse, one has first to join a golf club.
Back in Germany, I had to Google the Old Head to see what it looks like, since the building itself is fenced off to the public. - Yours, etc,
EVA GUERIN,
Markt Schwaben,
Germany
© The Irish Times 15.09.09

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Access to Old Head of Kinsale
Posted By Tony Lowes on 15/09/2009 ( Reads : 626 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Hunt's legal threat to Gormley's video spies

It is, as Oscar Wilde might say, a case of the Unreasonable in hot pursuit of the Unspeakable.

Environment Minister John Gormley is threatening to achieve overnight what hasn't happened in 154 years - evoke public sympathy for the property tycoons of the Ward Union Hunt.

Instead of simply banning the anachronistic stag hunt outright, Mr Gormley has declared a war of attrition - and, the hunters say, he has sent out an army of park rangers to videotape their activities, at an eye-watering cost to the taxpayer of EUR11,000 a pop.

 

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Hunt's legal threat to Gormley's video spies
Posted By Tony Lowes on 16/11/2008 ( Reads : 941 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Mountain plan includes new trails, interpretative centre

AN INTERPRETATIVE centre on Three Rock mountain and subsidised bus services for walkers are among the projects planned in a new initiative to encourage greater recreational use of the Dublin Mountains.

The Dublin Mountains Partnership, is a joint initiative between Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown and South Dublin county councils, Coillte, the Department of Environment and a recreational user group, Dublin Mountains Initiative, to be launched by Minister for Natural Resources Éamon Ryan.

New trails for walkers and cyclists, a recreational map of the area and measures to counter anti-social activities in the mountains are also planned by the group.

 

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Mountain plan includes new trails, interpretative centre
Posted By Tony Lowes on 21/10/2008 ( Reads : 1005 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Wicklow Way change 'unlinked' to sale

COILLTE HAS defended its sale of prime forest and recreational land along the State's busiest walking route in south Dublin to a private landowner.

The State-owned forestry company said the sale of six hectares of land at Kilmashogue last year was unrelated to the rerouting of the Wicklow Way in the area shortly before.

The rerouting of the way, which has seen the existing narrow switchback track in the Dublin mountains replaced by a broad gravelled highway, has dismayed walking groups. The lands by which the walking route formerly passed have recently been fenced off and planted with trees.

 

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Wicklow Way change 'unlinked' to sale
Posted By Tony Lowes on 20/10/2008 ( Reads : 981 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Looking for access all areas

A new walking scheme has brightened the outlook for rural tourism and has gone a long way towards solving years of conflict over access

THE NATIONAL WALKING trails network includes 32 trails which stretch 3,000km to reach virtually every corner of Ireland. Trumpeted as the salvation of rural tourism at innumerable cheese and wine launches, they were designed to link our loveliest villages, meander tranquil riverbanks, drop in on ancient castles and allow footfall access to landscapes loaded with legend.

 

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Looking for access all areas
Posted By Tony Lowes on 18/10/2008 ( Reads : 938 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Landowner gets right of way injunction
A Co Wicklow landowner who claims that no public right of way exists over his property has secured a High Court order preventing a march planned by a walking club for today.
Yesterday the court heard Joseph Walker, Annacrivey, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, has been subject to intimidation and his property damaged by individuals he claims wrongly believe there is a right of way across his land. He was granted a temporary injunction preventing named members of the Enniskerry Walkers' Association and any others from entering his land without lawful authority.

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Landowner gets right of way injunction
Posted By Tony Lowes on 22/09/2008 ( Reads : 989 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Reckless jet skiers putting lives at risk

RECKLESS drivers of high powered water craft like jet skis are putting lives at risk in one of the country's finest bays.

The Bantry Bay Harbour Authority in west Cork has urged the public to report any incidents of this dangerous behaviour to the gardaí.

Gardaí have the power under the Maritime Safety Act 2005 to respond to incidents of reckless boat use.

They can confiscate jet skis and impose on-the-spot fines of between €50 and €150. A court conviction can result in a fine of up to 2,000.

 

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Reckless jet skiers putting lives at risk
Posted By Tony Lowes on 09/07/2008 ( Reads : 943 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Yoicks! Gormley tally-ho tallies up to EUR300k

GREEN Party Environment Minister John Gormley is being blamed as taxpayers are likely be hit with a bill of up to EUR300,000 for a legal battle with the Ward Union Hunt (WUH).

Legal action was taken by the union - Ireland's only stag hunt - after new stipulations were added into their annual licence by the minister in November of last year.

The draconian new restrictions were put in place despite warnings from the department that they might prompt a successful legal challenge.

 

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Yoicks! Gormley tally-ho tallies up to EUR300k
Posted By Tony Lowes on 24/06/2008 ( Reads : 1003 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Plan to link Belfast Lough to Limerick
An ambitious bid to connect Belfast Lough to the west coast by linking Northern Ireland's inland waterways was launched in Enniskillen today. The new East West Waterway Project aims to re-open all the waterways from the Irish Sea to Lough Neagh and then via the Ulster Canal to the Erne Shannon systems over the coming years, creating a huge visitor attraction that will draw tourists into the heart of Northern Ireland.

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Plan to link Belfast Lough to Limerick
Posted By Peter McCloskey on 09/06/2008 ( Reads : 983 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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'Change the law to open up countryside'
More of Northern Ireland's countryside could be opened up to walkers, boosting tourism, if the law could be changed to protect landowners from legal challenges. That is the message from Ronnie Carser of the Ulster Federation of Ramblers Clubs, who is appealing to Environment Minister Arlene Foster to iron out the vexed question of occupier's liability.

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Friends of the Irish Environment - 'Change the law to open up countryside'
Posted By Peter McCloskey on 01/05/2008 ( Reads : 1011 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Ramblers ruin right-to-roam's landmark site
To ramblers and countryside lovers across the nation Kinder Scout is a landmark. It was here on this windswept Derbyshire moorland plateau in the Peak District that hundreds of working-class walkers gathered one Sunday morning in April 1932 to commit the celebrated Mass Trespass - a wilfully illegal act that would, ultimately, open up the countryside to the public. So it is, perhaps, inevitable that hundreds of thousands of modern-day ramblers still descend annually on the bleak but beautiful scene of this significant event in the battle for the 'right to roam'. It is perhaps ironic then that the birthplace of the rambling revolution is falling victim to the ramblers themselves. Millions of footfalls have contributed to such horrific erosion that conservationists are now fighting a desperate battle to save this iconic spot. And unless they do, it could be lost for ever.

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Ramblers ruin right-to-roam's landmark site
Posted By Peter McCloskey on 22/04/2008 ( Reads : 1041 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Decision on 'landmark' grazing case adjourned

A LANDMARK case concerning the rights of farmers to allow livestock to graze on their own lands has been adjourned to Ballycroy District Court for the Judge to consider legal argument heard in Achill District Court.

The case, which is the first of its kind taken in Ireland, was brought in the name of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, John Gormley, against two Ballycroy fanners, Michael Joseph Leneghan and Patrick McHugh.

They were accused of allowing their sheep to graze on state owned and protected lands, and during a 'closed period'.

 

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Decision on 'landmark' grazing case adjourned
Posted By Tony Lowes on 08/04/2008 ( Reads : 1184 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access
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Environmental Laws to Be Waived for Border Fence

Lawmaker Accuses Administration of Abusing Authority to Build Barrier at Mexican Border

The Bush administration will waive more than 30 environmental and land-management laws in order to finish building 470 miles of border fence in the Southwest by the end of the year, officials said yesterday.


The move, permitted under an exemption granted by Congress, will be the most sweeping use of the administration's waiver authority since it started building the fence to curb illegal immigration. It will affect environmentally sensitive areas in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

 

 

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Friends of the Irish Environment - Environmental Laws to Be Waived for Border Fence
Posted By Tony Lowes on 02/04/2008 ( Reads : 1027 ) | Comments (0) | Countryside access