Whole stretches of Ireland's coastline have been so blighted by unrestrained development, particularly housing, that An Taisce now regards them as "irredeemable"; indeed, it has effectively written off large parts of Donegal and Galway.
The conservation body's planning officer, Mr John O'Sullivan, points to "strings and strings" of bungalows in places such as Creeslough and Falcarragh as well as south Connemara. What difference will it make if hundreds more are piled into these once-scenic landscapes?
The most blighted areas are the Gaeltachta∅, where rural housing for local people has been subsidised for decades. Yet, where people once walked or cycled to each other's homes, the scattered nature and car dependency of more recent housing are unliklely to help the language. Much of it consists of holiday homes - and there is no evidence that their owners speak Irish either.
So just as the coastline is consumed by housing, the Gaeltacht itself is diluted by an influx of well-off, exclusively English-speaking weekenders, mostly from Dublin or Belfast.
Bloody Foreland, in the Rosses, has "the worst continuous coastal strip development in the country", according to Mr Ian Lumley, An Taisce's heritage officer. And once built, whether by local people or outsiders, the houses that litter this landscape are unlikely to disappear.
Elsewhere, "entire areas of the coast are being turned into Beamer colonies for the Dublin 4 set", Mr Lumley complains. Prime examples of this phenomenon include Schull, in west Cork; Ballinskelligs, Co Kerry, and the Clifden, Roundstone and Renvyle areas of Connemara. Sites in the more sought-after areas are selling for £50,000 apiece, enabling lucky landowners to build bigger houses for themselves.
Less fortunate local people lose out as more and more of a parish's housing stock is snapped up at inflated prices by wealthier outsiders.
Kilkee, Co Clare, one of the biggest victims of the previous government's ill-advised tax incentive scheme for seaside resorts, now has more holiday homes than permanent dwellings. And given our climate, these new implants remain vacant for most of the year.
"In west Cork, there is a new wave of planning applications for mock 19th century stone-clad houses," says Mr Lumley.
"With their 'tasteful' traditional style, they are designed to slip easily through the planning system, though all of them are still dependent on slimy septic tanks."
Many of the applicants have British, US or other addresses abroad, reinforcing the pattern of foreigners seeking homes in west Cork, even just for a long weekend, and this is "adding to what is already an unsustainable load of locally generated dispersed housing in the area".
On the east coast, the worst affected area after Co Wexford is probably Clogherhead, in Co Louth, where schemes of holiday homes have mushroomed in recent years. The only plus here is that their concentration in this area has spared other parts of the Louth coast.
The Wicklow coastline between Brittas Bay and Arklow is also "filling up quite a bit with one-off housing", observes An Taisce's Mr O'Sullivan. This problem is also "quite conspicuous" around Clew Bay, in Co Mayo, particularly on the way out to Louisburgh and Old Head.
Unlike Denmark, where nobody is allowed to build within one kilometre of the coastline, there are numerous examples in every Irish coastal county of houses being built too close to the shore, according to Ms Karin Dubsky, co-ordinator of Coastwatch Europe. "When the sea comes in next winter and starts lapping at their toenails, they scream and say 'we need erosion control'.
"And if the authorities don't do anything about it, some of them buy in construction and demolition waste and build makeshift embankments," she says.
"A lot of erosion control is done on a freelance basis without any consideration of its impact. In Co Wicklow, for example, the European Club (a golf course) has poured cement all over part of the shore where tern and plover used to nest. Now it looks like a concrete slipway."
Many local authorities seem to forget about floodplains in approving developments, despite the threat posed by climate change in terms of increased flooding, more frequent storms and a general rise in sea levels. Some of them even turn a blind eye to EU habitat designations.
Illegal access points are also widespread, as holiday home-owners make their own direct routes to the shore instead of using established, more circuitous paths. At Kerry Head, a chough nesting area has been disturbed by the opening up of new pathways running through it.
Many caravan sites in coastal areas are also illegal and what's tending to happen now is that individual caravans "metamorphose, lose their wheels and sprout decks, effectively becoming permanent dwellings", as Ms Dubsky puts it.
According to An Taisce, however, the problem of caravan sites crawling over coastal landscapes is declining because of a preference for purpose-built holiday homes - as exemplified most notoriously by clusters of suburban-style housing around Courtown, Co Wexford.
Further south, at Blackwater Head, the operation of mechanised sand quarries illustrates one very direct threat to the long-term survival of dune systems. Sand dunes are also being damaged by intensive use, including motorbike racing - now a major problem in Co Donegal.
Golf links represent another threat to dune systems. In Doonbeg, Co Clare, environmentalists fought and ultimately lost a battle with the Landmark National corporation over its plans to develop the most impressive dune system on the west coast as a golf resort. Free public access to the Old Head of Kinsale has been terminated by another golf course. And at Inch Strand, on the Dingle peninsula, D·chas had to obtain an injunction to stop development of yet another - the case is due to be heard shortly.
"Local people are in tears over what happened to the dunes near Mullaghmore, in Co Sligo," says Ms Dubsky. "They were wooded with a carpet of scented orchids, but over 100 acres have been wrecked by slurry spreading and D·chas has still not taken court action."
Then, of course, there is the perennial problem of sand being taken from beaches in what Ms Dubsky describes as "smash and grab raids", usually for football pitches. Both Coastwatch and D·chas are trying to persuade the GAA not to buy sand from such unlicensed operations.
There has also been an "explosion" of marinas, aided by substantial EU funding. In Cahirciveen, Co Kerry, rock for a marina breakwater is being excavated from the headland without a licence, she complains, even though the county council is involved in this £2.5 million scheme. Though the local Leader group is also a partner in the Cahirciveen project, most developers who make money from marinas are outsiders and local people have little influence over what happens. Frequently, a marina also serves as a catalyst for more holiday home development.
The qualities tourist towns such as Kinsale, Clifden and Dingle once had are being eroded by peak-season traffic congestion as well as by the development of "monster B&Bs" cashing in on the current boom. It is all very far from the romantic postcard view of Ireland.
Meanwhile, Coastwatch is involved in a long-running court battle with Drogheda Port over its dumping of dredge-spoil on mudflats in the estuary which are designated feeding grounds for wild birds. Legal action is also being considered over the dredging of Galway Bay. Other areas such as Bantry Bay, Kenmare Bay, Killary Harbour, Clew Bay and Mulroy Bay are under pressure from aquaculture, or fish-farming. The largest native oyster bed in Europe, in Lough Foyle, is at risk from an initiative to promote mussel farming.
The single most problematic proposal affecting a coastal area, however, is the plan by Enterprise Energy Ireland Ltd to bring the Corrib gas field ashore near Belmullet, Co Mayo - ironically, one of the most unspoiled parts of Ireland. Now it, too, is to be ensnared by the so-called Celtic Tiger.