Featherbeds in public ownership now

nomdeboardie

Glad to see the Featherbeds extend the area of wilderness in public ownership

Maybe the ridiculous "No Trespassing" signs can be taken down now?
(Not that I'd actually gotten around to comitting that heineous crime there - usually just passing through on the way to uplands, or busy cycling)

Meanwhile, journal.ie manages to confuse the issue by posting a pic of "Luggala Valley, part of the expanding Wicklow Mountains National Park" http://www.thejournal.ie/featherbeds-added-to-the-wicklow-mountains-national-park-2907620-Aug2016/ (They had ONE thing to do...) :rolleyes:
Yeah, dream on!

Judge

nomdeboardie wrote: »

Glad to see the Featherbeds extend the area of wilderness in public ownership

Maybe the ridiculous "No Trespassing" signs can be taken down now?
(Not that I'd actually gotten around to comitting that heineous crime there - usually just passing through on the way to uplands, or busy cycling)

Meanwhile, journal.ie manages to confuse the issue by posting a pic of "Luggala Valley, part of the expanding Wicklow Mountains National Park" http://www.thejournal.ie/featherbeds-added-to-the-wicklow-mountains-national-park-2907620-Aug2016/ (They had ONE thing to do...) :rolleyes:
Yeah, dream on!

Is there a map anywhere of the actual area that's covered? Been looking online but even the estate agent handling the sale doesn't seen to have one.

Anyway, it's great news. Seems Michael Ring played a big part in pushing this through, which surprised me a bit - I would have thought him to be part of the IFA/Landowner "Gerrof moi land!" mob, so glad to be wrong.

vicwatson

You'd have to laugh though, the government buys it from a government agency. LOL

nomdeboardie

Judge wrote: »

Is there a map anywhere of the actual area that's covered? Been looking online but even the estate agent handling the sale doesn't seen to have one. ...

I haven't been able to find one either

vicwatson wrote: »

You'd have to laugh though, the government buys it from a government agency. LOL

Indeed. Effectively, I suppose, the state gets it in return for bailing the owner out of debt.

According to this "Nama acquired the site after a developer involved in Dundrum Shopping Centre got into difficulties."

Wonder what the history of ownership and usage was for the area and what plans the developer had for the land (other than apparently trying making to sure no one set foot on it :rolleyes:)

Alun

nomdeboardie wrote: »

Wonder what the history of ownership and usage was for the area and what plans the developer had for the land (other than apparently trying making to sure no one set foot on it :rolleyes:)

I'd be interested in this too ... the few fellow hillwalkers I've spoken too about it, despite it being explicitly mentioned in all the news articles on the subject, seemed unaware of the fact that the land was already in private ownership before it fell under Nama, and presumably also belonged to various private owners long before the previous owner bought it too. Many seemed to think that it either was, or should have been, under public ownership before then anyway despite public ownership of land being very much the exception rather than the rule in Ireland.

recedite

nomdeboardie wrote: »

According to this "Nama acquired the site after a developer involved in Dundrum Shopping Centre got into difficulties."

Wonder what the history of ownership and usage..

A lot of it is worked-out bog, with the odd scraggy sheep running around.
The glowing description seems a bit overblown, though I would agree with the "there's nothing there" bit....

“[It] is a stunning wilderness and there is nothing there – not a shed and hardly a fence,” Mr Ryan said. “ It is a wildlife reserve to match any other.”

A lot of ex-bogs in the west get transformed into windfarms or conifer forests, but the special status around Glenasmole seems to preclude that. Also that flank of the featherbeds supplies water to most of southwest Dublin, via Bohernabreena reservoir, so that is possibly a factor in any future plans.

It would be nice IMO to try restoring some of these areas into what they must have been like before human interference; wildlife rich forests of oak and pine. I know there have been a few token efforts here and there, such as the Millenium Forest at Cloon, but nothing substantial yet.

nomdeboardie

recedite wrote: »

A lot of it is worked-out bog, with the odd scraggy sheep running around.
The glowing description seems a bit overblown, though I would agree with the "there's nothing there" bit.... A lot of ex-bogs in the west get transformed into windfarms or conifer forests, but the special status around Glenasmole seems to preclude that. Also that flank of the featherbeds supplies water to most of southwest Dublin, via Bohernabreena reservoir, so that is possibly a factor in any future plans.

It would be nice IMO to try restoring some of these areas into what they must have been like before human interference; wildlife rich forests of oak and pine. I know there have been a few token efforts here and there, such as the Millenium Forest at Cloon, but nothing substantial yet.

I went for a walk through the Cloon forest a few years ago out of curiosity. I don't know much about forestry but thought the whole thing rather odd - I presume most of the trees are young, but the high density at which they were planted/growing seemed to make for a very uninviting environement(?) The whole thing just seemed unappealing/disappointing to me; didn't help that it was almost impossible to get right down to the river, especially given the meagre public access to rivers in general here...OK, I'm going off on a tangent I think :P

recedite

I remember there was some crap about every citizen in Ireland getting their own tree in the Millenium Forest, supposedly identifiable by way of named grid squares on a map, with everybody's name listed as from the census, and held in some vault somewhere. Which would account for the high density of planting. But in reality that overly high density probably slowed their growth, and anyway 90% of them would have to be thinned out as they grew. I think "the powers that be" lost interest in it and it has not been maintained all that well since it was planted.
Eventually though, nature will take its course, and some kind of native forest will grow up there. Not a very big one, but better than nothing.