Index Home Join IPCC

Roundstone Bog Connemara threatened by airport development

The tranquility of Roundstone Bog, probably the finest stretch of lowland blanket bog still left relatively undamaged, is threatened once again by a proposed Clifden Airport. Eight years ago the plan was to put an airport in the north-west corner of the bog, in the townland of Ardagh near Clifden.

This proposal was refused planning permission on environmental and amenity grounds. Now the Clifden Airport Group wants to put a strip on the bog in Derrygimlagh, by the remains of the Marconi Telegraph Station (disused since 1922). The Marconi site belongs to the State, and the idea is that the Office of Public Works would receive the land at Ardagh in exchange for part of the Marconi site. The Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Ms. Síle de Valera, put a notice in the Connacht Tribune recently asking the public for their views on the idea. IPCC, the Save Roundstone Bog, and other environmental groups have made submissions opposing the land-swap. The bog in Derrygimlagh itself has been damaged by turf cutting over the years, and is not included in the proposed Special Area of Conservation which will give most of Roundstone Bog some protection.

Nevertheless IPCC feel that the new site should be opposed as vigorously as was the former one, for the following reasons:

The Derrygimlagh site is an integral part of the whole bog complex and should be preserved as a buffer zone. Because it is on a level with and close to the heart of Roundstone Bog, any development there would intrude on the silent beauty of this unique tract of wilderness, and compromise its status as a wildlife habitat.

Even a small strip could be the thin end of the wedge. A terminal building and carpark would no doubt soon prove necessary, and once the ban on building had been breached, there is no knowing what might be allowed in the future.

If a small strip is thought to be necessary and viable, it should be sited in a less sensitive area. Job creation is important, but developments that damage Connemara's most attractive features to the visitor, its spaciousness and tranquility, are not the way to go about it.

If you wish to express your views on this threat to a world-famous landscape, please write to:

Ms. Sile de Valera, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht

c/o Dúchas The Heritage Service, National Parks and Wildlife,

51 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2

For more information, contact: Tim Robinson, Save Roundstone Bog, c/o Folding Landscapes, Roundstone, Co. Galway. Tel. 095 35886, Fax 095 35974. Email: tandmfl@iol.ie or visit their web site at http://www.anu.ie/wirl/roundstone/bog.htm by clicking here

or check out the information in the recent IPCC press releases:

• September 16th 1998: Roundstone Bog Threatened Once Again
• September 16th 1998: NGO'S REJECT ROUNDSTONE BOG AIRPORT LAND SWAP
• September 14th 1998: Re: Proposal to site an airstrip at Derrygimlagh in the Roundstone Bog - a letter to IPCC supporters and those concerned for the environment

In a decision made in 2000 An Bord Pleanala gave permission for the development of an airstrip at Derrygimlagh.