The sprawl of one-off houses in Co Kerry now includes suburban-stylehousing estates 10 kilometres from Killarney, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor.
Suburban housing estates in the middle of nowhere - that's the latest development trend to hit Co Kerry. And none of it has anything to do with providing new homes for the sons and daughters of farmers.
The Taoiseach should take a tour of Killarney's hinterland to see it for himself. So should the Minister for the Environment and everyone at last weekend's Fianna Fáil ardfheis who cheered the new laissez-faire regime for rural housing.
Whole fields where there used to be sheep or cattle are now dotted with houses, while hedgerows are being replaced by an assortment of concrete block walls, post-and-rail fences, elaborate stone walls and neo-classical balustrades.
One-off houses are scattered all over the high ground in Fossa, five kilometres from Killarney, including some on the brows of hills, most of them orientated to avail of views towards the Macgillicuddy Reeks and Gap of Dunloe.
But the more shocking developments are farther out, around Faha, off the main road from Killarney to Dingle. Here, one-off housing is being intensified by developers building clusters of suburban-style homes for anyone who wants to buy into them.
Quite the most extraordinary is an estate called Meadowlands, 10 kilometres from Killarney. Very large and obviously very expensive detached two-storey houses have been built in their own enclave, behind a newly constructed low stone wall.
Next door, on a narrow country road, is an equestrian centre housed in a huge metal-clad portal-frame shed, and just opposite is the Killarney Country Club, which essentially consists of holiday homes arranged in two courtyards.
Not far away, near Laharn Cross, five identical bungalows have been laid out around a keyhole driveway, with footpaths on each side. The footpaths end at the entrance to the site; there are none on the road, where nobody walks anyway.
Further on, there's a billboard advertising another new housing scheme with "panoramic views" of the mountains. In Flintfield, being built by Cronin Developments, each house will have its own driveway off a private estate road.
The same company is also developing Faha Glen, a scheme of 10 dormer bungalows at Faha Cross, on the main Killarney-Dingle road.
Occupying an entire field of some four acres, each house has a floor area of 1,800 sq ft and four bathrooms.
The billboard proclaims the scheme as an "architect-designed development".
As in Flintfield, stone facing is used in the elevations and there is a single entrance through stone-faced piers, where a gushing stream has been culverted.
Near Two-Mile School, on the road from Firies to Killarney, there are signs advertising more sites for sale, one with planning permission for three houses. Spoil from one development site is used to make up level ground for others.
New houses on one side of the road have their boundaries set back, indicating that there is an intention to widen it in the future. Hedgerows are vanishing as more sites are developed for big houses with showy suburban-style front gardens.
There would not have been many houses on this road until recent years - a few remnants from the 19th century, one of which is derelict, and the sort of modest bungalows that used to be built in Kerry and elsewhere in the 1960s and 1970s.
But there is a real sense that an entire rural area is being colonised by suburban housing that should have been built on the immediate outskirts of Killarney. And since there are no shops to serve any of it, cars are essential for getting around.
Cllr Danny Healy-Rae (Ind), a vocal supporter of one-off housing in the countryside, said the "exorbitant cost" of land on the edge of Killarney was driving people further out. Provision had also been made for clusters in the county plan.
An Taisce's heritage officer, Mr Ian Lumley, visited Faha recently. "I'm not easily shocked because I'm used to seeing bad planning all over Ireland, but the pattern of development in this area is totally new in its sheer shocking impact," he said.
"We've now moved from one-off houses to one-off housing estates. Killarney has long been recognised for the scenic beauty of its landscape, but if this sort of development continues it may become notorious as a planning fiasco."
Mr Lumley was being polite. Faha and its environs are well on their way to becoming a visual slum. And because most of the new houses are serviced by septic tanks rather than town sewerage, groundwater supplies must be at risk too.
Firies, where the population has exploded in recent years, has a primitive sewage treatment plant which is over-loaded and cleaned out by a tractor once a week.
"You wouldn't see it in Morocco," one of the area's new residents said.
Kerry County Council's planners may have had to sacrifice areas like Faha to hold the line against over-development on the Ring of Kerry, but there can be no doubt that the housing sprawl now being permitted there is inherently unsustainable.