Planning permission for a wind farm in a scenic area of Tipperary which was opposed by Dúchas, the Heritage Service, has been overturned by An Bord Pleanála. Local residents and a number of environmental groups had also objected to the plans by a group of farmers to build the wind farm in the Slieveardagh Hills, near Urlingford.
South Tipperary County Council had granted permission for the development, which included 17 turbines ranging from 45 metres to 55 metres in height. The site was "only elevated in a localised context" and its impact on the visual amenities of the area would be negligible, it said.
However, a Bord Pleanála inspector, Mr Dermot Kelly, said a wind farm with blade tip heights of up to 81 metres in a prominent location, close to medieval buildings of architectural importance, would have had a negative impact.
In its appeal to the board, Dúchas had expressed particular concern about the potential damage to the visual amenity of two national monuments, Kilcoole Abbey and the War House at Farranrory.
Mr Peter and Ms Faith Ponsonby, owners of the Kilcoole Abbey demesne, also appealed the council's decision, claiming the development would have been "the death knell of the area".
They claimed the noise from the wind farm would have been intrusive and the skyline as seen from the abbey would have been seriously degraded.
Friends of the Irish Environment, An Taisce, the South East Tourism organisation and the Slieveardagh Environmental Protection Group has also raised concerns.
The council said it accepted that Kilcoole Abbey had a unique conglomeration of archaeological features, which were worthy of protection. It believed the demesne, however, could co-exist with the wind farm, it told the board.
The group behind the proposal, Mr Thomas Cooke of Barna, Thurles, and others, had offered a 10 per cent stake in the operation to the local community. There would be no impact on humans, livestock or horses, it claimed.
In its decision, however, the board said the wind farm was to be located in an elevated and unspoilt exposed location, in a rural scenic landscape. The area was designated in the South Tipperary development plan as one of "secondary amenity value".
By reason of its height, scale and extent, the development would be visually obtrusive and "would significantly detract from the cultural and visual amenity and landscape setting of the medieval Kilcoole Abbey, which is a national monument in State care and a protected structure of significant heritage importance.
"The proposed development would, therefore, be contrary to the proper planning and development of the area."