Acquisitive billionaire John Magnier is determined to demolish attractive historic farm buildings — for no reason.
By Dean Buckley.
Some 70 people gathered outside Parkville farm on the edge of Clonmel last Thursday to protest against what one sign described as a “billionaire land grab” by horseracing magnate John Magnier. Magnier bought the 64-acre farm at auction earlier this year for €2.425m, or almost €38,000 per acre.
Now a subsidiary of Magnier’s Coolmore operation called Melclon Unlimited has applied for planning permission to demolish derelict farm buildings that have been reclaimed by nature and to return the land to pasture, citing health and safety concerns.
The protest was called by Hedgerows Ireland, a national campaign group founded in Tipperary to oppose the removal of historic hedgerows, which are important to maintaining biodiversity, as many plant and animal species call them home.
Dr Alan Moore, Secretary of Hedgerows Ireland and Donal Ryan, President of the Clonmel Historical and Archeological Society, recently sent an open letter, opposing the plans and asking Magnier to “retain the vernacular farm building complex, walled garden and field boundaries at Parkville”.
They also said an application was made to Tipperary County Council in April this year to have the buildings listed as protected structures.
Planning documents submitted by agents of Melclon indicate roofs have collapsed in two of the three buildings, and describe “an extensive void dug under the floor of the dwelling, undermining the floor”.
The demonstration attracted a broad range of support, including from local farmers, several environmental and historical groups, and members of the Tipp Greens and Workers and Unemployed Action (WUA), a left-wing party based in Clonmel. Many attendees were friends of John Hurley, whose family farmed Parkville for almost fifty years before the sale.
Before the protest, the gates of Parkville were adorned with signs placed by Coolmore, explaining their decision and displaying both aerial and internal photographs of the farm buildings and their overgrown courtyard. The pictures amused some of the arriving protesters, who felt they captured the beauty of what Coolmore seeks to destroy.
Addressing the assembled crowd, Moore said they were gathered in opposition to three things: the removal of hedgerows and ditches, the demolition of the farm buildings and the consolidation of Irish farmland into the hands of a small number of wealthy owners like Magnier.
He said Coolmore has a well-known policy of destroying hedgerows to join land holdings for their tillage operation, citing the removal of hedgerows in Ballyhennebry, Loughcapple, Clonacody and Marlfield, among others.
“As far as we’re concerned — and all other experts in the area agree — this is bad farming. It pays no attention to what we know about climate change, particularly flooding, the biodiversity crisis we’re all in and all the other value that hedgerows bring” .
His sentiments were echoed by Myriam Madigan, Green Party general election candidate in Tipperary Southl, who told Village the countryside is being systematically destroyed by the removal of hedgerows.
“These woodlands are priceless for birdlife, and don’t forget, 63% of our birds are on either the orange or red list. This is outrageous. We can’t afford to lose this precious, priceless gem and become a boring, barren prairie”.
Coolmore have previously said they plant at least twice as much new hedgerow each year as they destroy, but Hedgerows Ireland reject this. In another open letter released by the group, and signed by local residents, they said:
“Apart from providing a home to wildlife (95% of our biodiversity is in hedges and ditches) they also store massive amounts of carbon, they prevent flooding and provide shelter, shade and beauty to the landscape. We simply cannot afford to lose any more, and replanting new hedges somewhere else is not the answer as a new hedge will take 50 years to match the Parkville hedges which have a rich variety of plant species and are over 200 years old”.
Hurley thanked the protesters for their support and spoke about some of the historic features he fears will be lost, including a seventeenth-century blast furnace previously identified as a lime kiln. If true, it would be one of only a handful of such furnaces documented in Ireland.
Coolmore has a well-known policy of destroying hedgerows to join land holdings for their tillage operation, citing the removal of hedgerows in Ballyhennebry, Loughcapple, Clonacody and Marlfield, among others.
He said he felt sorry for Magnier, echoing remarks made to the Irish Independent earlier this year.
“He’s a billionaire with thousands upon thousands of acres, when at the end of the day, six by three will do every single one of us. And we can’t take it with us. I’ve no bother with him buying the land, but why do you have to destroy every bit of it?”.
While most of the protesters wanted to preserve the buildings in their overgrown state, Mark Hampshire, a friend of Hurley’s who works in architectural restoration, expressed hope the site would be taken into public ownership by the Office of Public Works and the farmyard restored.
He compared Parkville to the estates at Annes Grove Gardens and Doneraile House in Co. Cork, as well as Emo Court in Co. Laois, where the OPW maintains historic buildings for public use.
“Coolmore only want it as a field. We can’t replace that…They want to take something away that’s 300 years old. It’s definitely backwards we’re going”.
Daniel Long, a dairy farmer and journalist, spoke to the overriding concern of all attendees: the ability of Coolmore and other wealthy buyers to purchase land at prices far beyond the reach of ordinary farmers. He described it as not just an Irish problem, but a European problem, with institutional investors outbidding both active farmers looking to expand their operations and new farmers seeking to enter the field.
Long has proposed the establishment of a land observatory which would initially gather information on land ownership in order to provide open-source data for community groups, farmers and policy makers. He said there is an absence of data that makes it difficult to establish the scale of consolidation.
Even conservative estimates of Coolmore’s land holdings suggest it owns more than 1% of the entire area of Co. Tipperary.
Former TD Seamus Healy (WUA), who is running in the coming general election, attended the protest with his party colleague, Cllr. Pat English. Speaking to Village, he expressed concern regarding both Coolmore’s farming practices and their distorting effect on the land market.
“The purchase of huge tracts of farmland by wealthy financial interests is excluding active family farmers from land purchase. This is an issue which needs to be addressed urgently by government’.
Long said he and others had been in talks with policy makers about the land observatory taking a “watchdog” role regarding land use and consolidation. He cited France’s SAFER system as a model, particularly its policy of giving local farmers the right of first refusal on land purchases before opening them up to other buyers.
He acknowledged that property rights were a huge issue in Ireland, but recalled the Land Commission, which redistributed 86% of Ireland’s farmlands from landlords to farmers in the years after independence and continued to regulate land purchases until it was abolished in 1999.
John Hurley was the last person to leave the protest, staying to chat with supporters until the sun began to sink behind the Galtees. He expressed incredulity that Coolmore would destroy so much for the sake of so little land.
The fellas that built that, they were craftsmen. They had no telescopic loaders, that was probably all hand-squared stone”
“All he wants to do, for less than a quarter of an acre, is sweep our heritage away. The fellas that built that, they were craftsmen. They had no telescopic loaders, that was probably all hand-squared stone”.
He described asking a Coolmore worker about the likely fate of a wrought-iron gate forged for Parkville in 1871.
“He said with Magnier he might just bury it under the ground.”
Hurley removed the gate and brought it home to his yard for safekeeping.
“If he ever wants it back, he can have it”.
