At the height of the Vietnam war, one US colonel memorably attempted to justify the wholesale destruction of a particular village on the basis that "we had to destroy the village in order to save it". The same motto might just as easily be applied to any number of Ireland's tourism-related "heritage projects".
On Inishmaan, in the Aran Islands, Udaras na Gaeltachta is helping to fund a £100,000 "restoration" of the thatched cottage where J.M. Synge used to stay. Intended to mark the centenary of his first visit in 1898, it has the support of numerous luminaries such as Roddy Doyle, Neil Jordan, Declan Kiberd, Patrick Mason and Senator David Norris.
It's the kind of project that needed a caring touch, but that's not what it is getting, according to Peter Pearson, a member of the Heritage Council. When the promoters sought grant-aid from the council, he visited Inishmaan and recommended a policy of "minimal intervention" - but his advice was rejected in favour of radical reconstruction.
Synge's cottage was reduced to four walls, its interior completely gutted and earthen floors replaced with concrete. None of the original rafters or floorboards were salvaged because they were "rotten", according to Liam O'Doherty, the Athlone-based project architect. "We might have been able to save one or two, but it wasn't worth it."
New, rather than recycled, timber is being used throughout - even though the aim is to be as authentic as possible. All of the plaster has been stripped off the internal walls, which are to have their exposed stone whitewashed instead. This would "clean it up and bring it back" to something like the condition it was in when Synge stayed there, according to Mr O'Doherty.
Another example cited by Mr Pearson is the fate of a derelict, circa 1850, market house in Clonmany, near Malin Head. The local community development group had applied to the Heritage Council for a grant to restore it and received sound architectural advice. But the building has since been demolished and is to be replaced by a "replica".
James Howley, the Dublin-based architect who inspected the building in 1995, has written dozens of reports for the Heritage Council on grant applications. "The ignorance of conservation is rife nearly everywhere you go," he says. "Churches and other historic buildings are being destroyed left, right and centre. It's really shocking."
The PVC plague continues to spread, even in "heritage towns" such as Kinsale. In the village of Annascaul on the Dingle peninsula, "every single house without exception now has PVC windows", according to Mr Pearson. Perhaps this will only change as people come to realise that PVC is a toxic fire hazard as well as an aesthetic disaster.
Even in Kilkenny, the self-styled "conservation capital of Ireland", three new houses have been shoe-horned into the backland area behind Parliament Street, right under the nose of the Heritage Council, which has its headquarters in Rothe House. The setting of one of its courtyards has been heavily compromised by this insensitive development.
Like many other Irish towns, Kilkenny is now firmly in the grip of a roaring "Celtic Tiger". Developers have bulldozed remnants of medieval walls to make way for profitable infill schemes; one of the latest casualties is a view of the Black Abbey framed by the last surviving city gate, now lost forever behind another trio of houses.
Meanwhile, mindless vandals are wreaking havoc on the churchyard of St Mary's, a disused Church of Ireland parish church just off High Street, where Kilkenny's most important families have been buried for centuries. Even the Shee mausoleum, one of the city's greatest treasures, is criss-crossed with graffiti and in danger of collapse.
The picturesque village of Inistioge, south of Kilkenny, is also threatened by developers seeking sites for new holiday homes and by well-meaning but misguided efforts to "prettify" it to the point of petrification. Local people have set up a watchdog group to prevent it becoming "a weekenders' paradise and a weekday ghost village".
Vandalism takes many forms. The land on both sides of the tree-lined avenue linking the main street in Maynooth with Carton House is threatened with rezoning for development, courtesy of Kildare's county councillors. If this happens, it will end up like Castletown House (now in State ownership), where mock-Georgian houses line the avenue.
The current owners of Carton Demesne are hoping to get £5.6 million in EU aid under the tourism programme to develop it as a "destination resort", including a luxury hotel, two golf courses, roads, car parks and up to 188 new houses on the 1,000-acre estate, which was landscaped two centuries ago by Lady Emily FitzGerald, first Duchess of Leinster.
Prompted by complaints from the Irish Georgian Society, the European Commission is investigating the project and has raised more than eyebrows about the absence of any link between the profit made from selling the proposed houses - ultimately as "executive homes" for Dublin's commuter belt - and the restoration of Carton House itself.
Powerscourt has already been the victim of a similar scheme. Eagle Gate, its main entrance near Enniskerry, has been irreparably scarred by an estate of pretentious "luxury" houses, while the original house - gutted by fire in 1974 - lives on as little more than a shopping mall, with a crude mock-Palladian golf club plonked almost in front of it.
The setting of Rathfarnham Castle is also threatened by a brash commercial redevelopment of its out-buildings as a pub-hotel, with a potentially large beer garden in the courtyard. Because the castle is such an important National Monument, this scheme is being strongly opposed by Duchas, the Heritage Service, and by local residents.
Similar battles are being fought elsewhere. In Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, local campaigners have been attempting to set aside an extraordinary deal which would hand over portions of the publicly-owned Lough Muckno Leisure Park to a London-based property company, which has plans to develop over 100 "holiday homes".
The real growth areas for holiday homes are the 13 designated seaside resorts, where development activity has become frenetic to beat next July's deadline for lucrative tax incentives. These were introduced in 1995 under an ill-advised renewal scheme which has had devastating consequences for coastal communities and the environment.
If the seaside resort tax incentive scheme had generated new hotels, hostels, bed-and-breakfast accommodation and much needed indoor leisure facilities, its effects would have been beneficial. Instead, it has been used as a vehicle for investment in clusters of expensive holiday homes, which have priced local people out of the housing market.
In Bettystown, Co Meath, the scheme might have been used to give this resort some coherence. Instead, clusters of holiday homes have simply added to the visual chaos and the public infrastructure has not kept pace with development. Roads are rutted and electricity supplies are carried on timber poles.
Achill Island is one of the worst affected areas. The village of Dooagh is being overwhelmed with holiday homes, some of them being snapped up by investors at £120,000 apiece. Local residents are actively opposing a further 100-plus houses, including one development of 26 units which would engulf Captain Boycott's old house at Corrymore.
An Taisce also opposes the development of new holiday home clusters outside towns and villages, especially on sites between the road and the sea in scenic coastal areas. "New multiple holiday homes outside these communities do not represent good management of a resource that is limited and vanishing at an alarming rate," it said last January.
Bord Failte and the Department of Tourism have carried out a major review of the tax incentive scheme for seaside resorts. The findings must be devastating, which probably explains why neither body was prepared to supply a copy of this review to The Irish Times. Perhaps some TD can ask for it when the Dail resumes.
The holiday home developers haven't always got their way - not least because of the sceptical view taken by An Bord Pleanala. It has refused permission for several schemes, including a major development at Ventry Strand, on the Dingle Peninsula, where it cited "the cultural heritage of this Gaeltacht area" as one of the principal reasons.
The board's chairman, Paddy O'Duffy, recently had to defend its record before an Oireachtas committee against charges that it was paying too much attention to the views of An Taisce. He said the board had upheld its appeals against "insensitive" schemes in coastal areas which did not pay sufficient regard to county development plans.
But An Bord Pleanala does not always see eye-to-eye with An Taisce. In what is perhaps the classic conflict between the interests of tourism and Ireland's architectural heritage, it granted permission for a £35 million hotel development at the edge of College Green in Dublin - even though it would mean the loss of several historic buildings.
Lancefort Ltd, the company set up by militant conservationists to fight high-profile planning cases, took it all the way to the Supreme Court - and lost. Now its directors - including Michael Smith, chairman of the Dublin City Association of An Taisce - face the prospect of a massive bill for legal costs.
Tomorrow: how to get tourism right