Holiday Developments in Connemara

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Nick99

Guest
Hi
I'd love to hear some views with regard to what people think of large scale holiday developments in small rural villages on the west coast.

Our village is a beautiful village (located in Connemara) with a population of 350 but in essence its become a dead town, Four family owned businesses have closed in the last two years, the local factory has closed, the primary school numbers have dropped from 100 to 25 in ten years. There are no young people between the ages of 20 and 35. All we have now is tourism to earn a living from. 60% of the houses in the towns boundary are holiday homes.
We have three large scale holiday developments at the planning office waiting for approval, with a combined total of 36 houses and 12 apartments (i know it sounds small but in the context of the village its big).
Our village is divided straight down the middle with regard to the issue. Some people say that it is what we need to create employment and that the people who will buy these houses will be wealthy and will spend money when they are here. Others say that it will just be an investment for them and they will only be here three weeks of the year and built by foreign workers who have no interest in spending money in the local economy. Our water and sewerage systems are creaking as it is, with no interest from the council to upgrade as the population base is low.
I'd love to hear the experience of other towns or individuals around the country that have seen a similar situation in the past,
Thanks......
 
As a Dub it's hard to have too much sympathy with this sort of thing when most of my friends now live 30-60 minutes from where they grew up because they can't afford a house in what I would regard as a average middle class area. Much of the reason for high prices in Dublin is the number of people from small towns and villages in rural Ireland moving to the capital. As long as it's OK for people from your village to move to Dublin (or Galway or Cork) and push up the house prices then it's hard to see how it's not OK for people from urban centres buying holiday houses.
The strain on infrastructure is the same in urban and rural areas as well.
As for the issue of not contributing to the local area, that is a problem but whatever sanctions the locals think should apply to outsiders buying a holiday home should also apply to locals who move to a town or city but keep their house and only come home for holidays.
I'm not saying that I am not sympathetic to the impact that these sort of developments have on a small community but the impact of the economic boom on urban communities it just as big.
 
If our corrupt Golden Circle actually cared about this they would invest heavily in public transport. We're not that big of a country. If we had a decent transport network people could live anywhere in Ireland and work wherever they want. This wouldnt suit the land speculators and property developer who are in the pockets of our government though!
 
Nick99 said:
Our village is a beautiful village (located in Connemara) with a population of 350 but in essence its become a dead town, Four family owned businesses have closed in the last two years, the local factory has closed, the primary school numbers have dropped from 100 to 25 in ten years. There are no young people between the ages of 20 and 35. All we have now is tourism to earn a living from. 60% of the houses in the towns boundary are holiday homes
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Its a problem that a lot of rural Ireland now faces with the EU closing down farming and the very high cost of labour causing manufacturing industry to consider relocating out of the country

If the school goes then will the post office be far behind ?

A glum vista indeed.

Charlie McCreevy and his root & branch decentralization may yet be the saviour of a lot of rural Ireland ( hard to believe that ).

I doubt that holiday homes will be much help.

What a shame it is that there is nothing really new in all this. The process has been going on since the famine. John Healy described the death of the village where he grew up in 'Nineteen Acres' which IIRC was first published in the 1960's
 
Purple said:
that's a wee bit paranoid redbhoy.
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Surely you agree? The needs of this country have rarely been met by the government. Their corruption coupled with severe lack of foresight is costing us dearly. Why wasn't the M50 built with 3 lanes instead of 2. The unelected advisers who are paid scandalous amounts per year had to have envisaged a higher flow of traffic in the future. Id say this suited the lads at CRH who were in Charlie Haugheys pockets!
The red-cow fiasco? Foresight lacking here!
Would you not agree that a better transport system would mean that people could live further afield and not need to commute 2-3 hours to do so? Who does the current system suit? Not the workers anyway? The vested interest is with the FF/PD backers who are sitting on huge tracts of land around the outskirts of the Pale.
 
redbhoy said:
Surely you agree? The needs of this country have rarely been met by the government. Their corruption coupled with severe lack of foresight is costing us dearly. Why wasn't the M50 built with 3 lanes instead of 2. The unelected advisers who are paid scandalous amounts per year had to have envisaged a higher flow of traffic in the future. Id say this suited the lads at CRH who were in Charlie Haugheys pockets!
The red-cow fiasco? Foresight lacking here!
.
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While I wouldn't disagree with your frustration at the absence of public transport, we get the politicians we deserve. The corruption in Govt was (and possibly is) just a mirror of the corruption prevelant in everyday life.
 
Hi redbhoy,
I agree with you that there was a severe lack of foresight and no real national planning in the 70's and 80's but to imply that it's all part of a grand scheme is taking things a bit too far IMHO. There is no doubt in my mind that the significant level of corruption that we had in the 70's and 80's has contributed to our ills but no one in politics or business saw the Celtic tiger boom and most of the infrastructure problems we have now are a result of that. I agree with rainyday's point that our government reflects the morals of society in general. I would also suggest that the reason Fianna Fail is /was so associated with corruption is because it was in power most of the time. There's no point in bribing the guys who don't make the decisions.
 
You're missing the point. You are a member of society. Society as a whole has chosen to be governed in this way. Like it or not you are partly responsible!
 
You're missing the point. You are a member of society. Society as a whole has chosen to be governed in this way. Like it or not you are partly responsible!
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I don't really want to lead this thread off topic, so this'll have to be my last comment on this.

Society has imposed its rule apon me. I was born into this world and this is the way it is, whether I like it or not. I disagree with the founding principles of Irish democracy. Voting is a farce, contrived to keep people with power, in power.

I am not responsible for the government in any way.
 
redbhoy said:
I'd say this suited the lads at CRH who were in Charlie Haugheys pockets!
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While I agree with you on your point about corruption, I would like to point out it was the other way around: CJH was in the pockets of the boys at CRH and other interests in the construction and property industry.
 
RainyDay said:
The corruption in Govt was (and possibly is) just a mirror of the corruption prevelant in everyday life.
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Again, it's the other way around: corruption in everyday life is a reflection of corruption by elected officials who have been in Govt for over 50 out of the last 80 or so years. If the elected leadership showed integrity, that would encourage better behaviour in the general population. Morality is doing the right thing, not doing what you can get away with.
 
Slash said:
Again, it's the other way around: corruption in everyday life is a reflection of corruption by elected officials who have been in Govt for over 50 out of the last 80 or so years. If the elected leadership showed integrity, that would encourage better behaviour in the general population. Morality is doing the right thing, not doing what you can get away with.
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I completely disagree with you slash. I think that on balance the political leadership in this country from all parties is more honest, compassionate and liberal than the vast majority of the people it represents.
I am not a member of any political party so I have no agenda in saying that.
There are many politicians whose politics I don't like but there are very few in the main stream that I don't have a good deal of respect for.
I think that it is the height of hypocrisy for people to do nixers, be they plumbers, teachers of solicitors and then criticise any politician for not paying his or her taxes. We constantly turn a blind eye to what we and our neighbours and families do and expect the people whom we elect from amongst ourselves to set an example and be morally pure.
If you accept the proposition that the voting populace of this country are neither cretins nor children then you will surely have to accept that we are accountable for our own actions.
 
Hi nick99, take alook at some of the seaside villages in parts of west clare. Better still if you have the time start driving from Liscannor down along the coast, and talk to some of the locals.
 
if you have the time start driving from Liscannor down along the coast, and talk to some of the locals.

...........and for those of us who can't, what might we see/hear?
 
I should have perhaps explained myself a bit better, but I lost the plot with the typing! So here goes. During the winter a lot of the smaller villages are almost deserted.The traditional holiday/tourist season lasts thru the months of July and August, with maybe two weeks in late June and two weeks in early sept. Roads and streets are choking with traffic and local infrastructure i.e. water pressure in particular cannot cope with the influx because of lack of forward planning. In areas with greater numbers of h/home type developments, it has had the knockon effect of driving house prices skywards. Local people are finding they are priced out of the market. The revenue generated from holidayhomes is of its nature seasonal, and highly dependant on the rental market and the irish weather. The impact on the environment I think will haunt us for generations to come. How some of the developments ever got past planning regs is shocking. If a small community is looking to regenerate itself , I would please ask them to think again, and consider very carefully the longterm effect this will have.
 
Most of the outer suburbs of Dublin are deserted during the day. Ask a stay at home parent in one of the new developments in west Dublin if they have much contact with their neighbours during the day. There are roads that can't cope for two hours in the morning and two in the evening and are empty for the rest of the day. There is no real community for these people, most of who grew up nearer the city (if they come from Dublin) in areas where there would have been a sense of community. The reason they don't live where they grew up is because of the number of people from outside Dublin, say from nice villages on the west coast, who are competing for houses in the capital and are pricing the locals out of the market.
When there is a tax on people from outside Dublin buying houses in Dublin that goes to help locals buy homes where they grew up then I think it would be fair to stop the Dubs buying holiday homes in Rural areas. The same goes for any of the big towns and cities around the country.
 
Hi Purple, I could not let your comments go unchallenged! On what basis are you assuming that its only Dubs who are buying holiday homes? The taxation system you are suggesting , would only cause holy war to break out if it were ever implemented....The point I was trying to make was that holiday home type dev. would not create employment , provide any sustainable regeneration for a community. In fact the only people who benefit in the main are the owners, the developers and the government. On afinal note Icame to Dublin many moons ago to study and work , and have added two more Young Dubs to the population, who also will not be able to live in the environment in which they grew up! In fact one of them is looking to buy down the country, where there is much better value for money.......
 
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