This article is from page 8 of the 2006-01-31 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
IN THE end, all it took was one line.
A line that finally brought closure on something that dragged around the beautiful Burren and beyond for 15 years. Mullach Mór – that mountain of a controversy.
The line didn’t smack of defeat, but that’s what it was. The final admission from the State that the interpretative centre game was up. A game the State started, the game the State lost.
The game started the April 22, 1991 day that the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Vincent Brady, announced that the OPW was going to build a £2.6 million interpretative centre in the shadow of Mullaghmore mountain.
The State moved in the bulldozers – intent on building its centre of interpretative excellence without planning permission. The State was above the law in planning matters, so their rules said.
Game on. The State’s loose interpretation of the planning laws amounted to bulldozing on the rights of ordinary citizens. Citizens like James Howard, PJ Curtis, Emer Colleran, Lelia Doolan, Fionnuala McNamara, John O’Donoghue and Patrick McCormack of the Burren Action Group.
They risked everything – their homes, their livelihoods. Lose and the State would show no mercy. They didn’t lose because An Bord Pleanála finally ruled in 2000 that the Mullaghmore centre “would result in an unacceptable degradation of the physical environment of an area of outstanding beauty and that it would not be in accordance with the principles of published by the Government in 1997”.
Still, the State showed no mercy when it was revealed by The Clare People last month that its agents, Crosskerrys Solicitors, had moved to try and get €35,000 from the Mullaghmore Seven.
It had another storm brewing in the Burren – even Mullaghmore supporter, Minister Tony Killeen, voiced his opposition to the move. The State smelled some small revenge – it only left their nostrils with their climbdown on Friday.
The one line letter to the Burren Action Group told this story. “I wish to inform you that I have now been instructed not to pursue any further the balance of the State’s costs in this matter,” said Chief State Solicitor, David J O’Hagan.
Another victory for the Burren Action Group. The final one. The end of the terrible affair.