THE house in Ballyknockan - oh well named village! - which, was demolished with the permission of Wicklow County Council officials, apparently, without the knowledge of the county councillors - I know well. It was a little edificial jewel and to have sent the wreckers in without the locals - or even the family which had owned it for generations before it was given to the present owners, Opus Dei (God bless them) - knowing about it suggests a certain insensitivity. It does something else. It prompts the question: Is Wicklow in the hands of people who always know what is best for Wicklow?
No doubt the officials who decided that the 135 year old stone house was beyond repair or redemption are upright, decent people. Did they not think to notify everybody with an interest in the most charming house in the village that it was to be demolished? If demolition was the only option, would it not have been sensible to have as local mason Andy Farrington suggested, to have numbered the stones so that the house could be reconstructed on its original lines, rather than to send in the crudely destructive Ballyknocking machinery? Why couldn't the feelings and experience of a man like Andy have been consulted?
Treasured stones
Is it because he treasured the house, and was moved to say after its virtual ruination: "It was a sacrilege to do what was done. I know the type of time and trouble and skill that went into it and it was wiped out before our eyes. We here in Ballyknockan treasure our stone. It is our heritage."
Not now it isn't.
And how do the present owners, Aosog Centres Ltd, feel about the response of John Brady whose family built the house in 1861? He said because of what had been done, with the contractors sending a bulldozer through it, he was unable to sleep at night.
The notice of demolition was put in the Irish Press Interesting. Why the virtually unread Press? When, we wonder and in what language, pray? Was it the first national language? Certainly, locals knew nothing of this project until the ruination was irreversible.
The issue is not just one cottage in one small, pretty village, in one of Ireland's loveliest counties. The issue is that county itself. With decision making like the above radically affecting - and outraging - an entire community, to what sensitivity do the officials who make important decisions for the county respond?
The question is worth asking, now because the house was listed for preservation in the Wicklow County Development Plan. Another of the county's features listed for preservation in the Wicklow Development Plan is the coastal strip which stretches south from Greystones to Wicklow town - and now we hear that one of the provisional routes for the extension of the N11 is right through that very coastal strip.
Well now. Isn't that interesting? If Wicklow council officials feel that it is perfectly all right for a house which is listed for preservation to be demolished, what is to prevent them coming to some similarly interesting solution to the problem of the Ashford bypass?
That Ashford must be bypassed cannot be in doubt, if only to spare us all sight of the Ashford House pub, that plate glass monstrosity now on the site of the charming old Synnott's pub which was once there. That coastal strip is one of the secret delights of Ireland. In its winding laneways, enchanting little hamlets nestle. It is one of the areas of Ireland I would love to live in, if only to have Hunter's Hotel close to hand.
For Hunter's is one of the prices we might pay if those who decide these things permit the N11 extension to occupy the coast option. The road will run close to it, so destroying the fabled peace and tranquillity of the most enchanting roadhouse and inn in Ireland. For many people, Irish people as well as foreigners, Hunter's defines the best of Ireland and the Irish. It has been a roadhouse for two centuries. Stage coaches to Wexford once stopped here when Rathnew straddled the main road south.
Irish cuisine
I don't know what the hospitality was like in those days. If people were lucky, it was like what it is in Hunter's now, and for as long as I have known it. It combines courtesy, efficiency, friendliness and old fashioned Irish cuisine at its simplest and best. The vegetables come from its gardens; its lamb from the Wicklow hills beyond its fish from the seas a stone's throw away.
The Sunday lunch you get at Hunter's is the Sunday lunch which was the norm a generation ago but has now all but vanished everywhere - great big joints of roast beef with crunchy crust and Yorkshire pudding; roast pork with crackling that explodes with sinfully crunchy voluptuousness in your mouth; lamb that is as sweet as honey; and roast potatoes and gravy that you have not tasted since childhood.
That is why Hunters is so precious - its either a flash back to childhood or to the imagined fantasies of childhood as it should have been. The afternoon teas which they specialise in belong to old British movies - on the lawn, impeccably elegant sandwiches, homemade scones and sponge - with raspberries in season - that one has to attach bricks to that it might not float away. Robins might join your feast and feed from your fingers.
Hunter's Hotel and the family who have kept it going for nearly two centuries, the great and good Gelletlies, are a national institution beyond price or value. Their future might well be in the hands of Wicklow County Council. Well might they - and we - tremble.