Developers of a £12.5 million golf course at Doonbeg, Co Clare, will face a legal action next month by people claiming ownership of land at the 18th hole.
Mr Dave McNamara, Ms Linda Daly and her father, Mr Joe Daly, all based in the Limerick area, will take their action against Doonbeg Golf Club Ltd, whose chairman is Senator George Mitchell.
The three used to take their holidays at the isolated sand dunes which back on to the Atlantic at Doughmore Bay but which now form part of the Greg Norman-designed course, and hotel and holiday home complex. A year after construction began, the seeding and the laying of strips of grass turf is almost complete and the course is due to open in the spring of 2002.
Although they do not have title deeds for the land where their chalets and caravans were located, they say Mr McNamara's late father and his best friend, Mr Daly, were given a piece of ground by a former owner of the site, Ms Kathleen Conlon, who has since died.
Before she died, she signed over her farm to a neighbour and it was then sold to the golf course developers. Mr Doug Barton, chief executive of Doonbeg Golf Club, said it would be inappropriate for the company to respond to the claims until it was legally informed of them.
Mr McNamara says in an affidavit that it did not occur to him or his family that the transfer of title in 1983 interfered with their rights as owners of their site. At his home in Parteen, he has cinecamera footage of summer holidays spent on the site.
He states that his late father and Mr Daly had received it in payment for work carried out for Ms Conlon and they fenced it off. In 1979, Mr McNamara's parents gave him a site next to their chalet. His mother has accepted a financial settlement from the developers.
Mr McNamara's solicitor, Mr Robert Burke, of Holmes, O'Malley, Sexton, said this week that proceedings would be issued shortly after Christmas about the matter.
Ms Daly, who received a plot within the site from her parents, states in her affidavit that all her holidays were spent at the site and she learnt to walk there. "Summer days were spent swimming, saving hay with locals, gathering wood for bonfires, clay pigeon shooting and fishing."
She said this week that she valued the holidays for having "a beach at your back and to have space". "My son missed out on it. I feel very strongly about that. That is what I want back for him, that holiday style of life that we had."
Meanwhile, the company received the first tranche of a £2.4 million European Regional Development Fund grant this week. Along with the links course, a 51-bedroom hotel, 10 four-bedroom holiday suites, 46 holiday homes and a 368-space car-park are being built.
Mr Barton said lack of sunshine was impeding the growth of the grass which has delayed the opening of the course for limited play beyond next summer. "We do not want to open the course prematurely with immature grass."
It has been a long road. The company went through a lengthy planning process when attention was centred on Vertigo Angustior, a 2mm-size snail which is a protected species and whose main habitat is at Doonbeg. Last April, a High Court action, brought by Mr Tony Lowes, chairman of An Taisce's environment committee, against the developers was settled, but the condition of the snail population is now subject to an annual review.
Mr Lowes said the first annual review was due. "If it turns out that the snail has not thrived on the golf course, then we have the right to go back to the courts," he said.