Sir, – Further to the letter by David Herman (December 22nd), far from "asserting" that anyone "wanted" to trespass on suburban gardens, I was poking fun at the inconsistencies of those in leafy suburbs who see no contradiction between keeping people out of their gardens and tennis courts with dogs, cameras and alarms while loudly insisting on their "rights" to march over mostly peasant-owned land. The underlying principle appears to be a curiously socialist belief in compulsory sharing of privately owned amenities, secure in the knowledge that they will never be expected to reciprocate.
Ireland certainly is different from many other European countries – rightly or wrongly, we have much more one-off housing than most other countries. Aside from parts of a few counties such as Wicklow, Mayo, Kerry, etc, there simply aren’t the swathes of remote land that you find in many other countries. In many northern and midland counties in particular, go a few hundred yards in any direction and you’re on top of another house. This pattern of rural housing development and small farm sizes means that much of our land is unsuitable for rambling. It’s not the Scottish highlands; it’s not northern Sweden.
Further, the far bigger issue is the chronic political failure to designate more areas as national parkland. It’s startling that Yorkshire has more national parkland than the whole of Ireland put together (Northern Ireland has none). In this context, off-loading the amenity access issue to private landowners is a cop-out to excuse continuing Government inaction on the issue. But then again, you can’t be having too much parkland when there’s all that fracking to be done. – Yours, etc,
SEÁN MacCANN,
Trillick, Co Tyrone.
Sir, – I’m reminded of the farmer who put the the following notice on his gate, “Entry to field free but bull may charge later”. – Yours, etc,
TOM GILSENAN,
Beaumont, Dublin 9.
Sir, – I’ve enjoyed the debate on these pages about walking, cycling, tourism and property rights. It has certainly opened my eyes to the legitimate fears and gripes of farmers and the frustrations felt by ramblers who feel stymied by obdurate property owners. Whichever side of the debate we come down on, I hope we can all agree that there is nothing like a brisk walk to shed those extra Christmas pounds. – Yours, etc,
PATRICIA O’RIORDAN,
Dublin 8.