A £130 million leisure and residential development outside Tullamore, Co Offaly, is bringing locals into possible conflict with An Taisce.
An action committee in Durrow is unhappy with a report that An Taisce might lodge an objection to the development.
The five-star leisure resort in the grounds of Durrow Abbey is being proposed by Radleigh Developments, a Dublin-based property consortium.
It has submitted a planning application to Offaly County Council for a 102-bedroom hotel, a championship golf club, leisure centre, an equestrian centre, 375 golf villas, apartments and what has been described as courtyard housing in cluster developments.
The most emotive part of the proposal - full access to the famous High Cross of Durrow and Durrow Abbey - appears to have swung local opinion towards the development.
For more than 100 years, access to the historic site has been limited and in recent years, locals have only been allowed to visit the national monument on one day each year, June 9th.
According to Matt Geraghty, chairman of the Durrow Action Committee, the developers have arranged with Duchas that they take over the monastic site.
"However, we understand from a leaked report from An Taisce that they may object to planning permission which we understand is about to be given by Offaly County Council.
"We sought a meeting with An Taisce but they have not contacted us and we are angry about that," he says.
"If the locals, Duchas and Offaly County Council see fit to allow the development, we cannot understand why they would want to stop it." He says the cross has suffered considerable weather damage and is in urgent need of restoration, along with a large number of other artefacts on the site. A spokesman for An Taisce, Mr John O'Sullivan, said it would decide whether to lodge an objection when planning permission was issued.
He said the organisation was concerned at the number of homes planned for the development in a demesne landscape where no buildings existed.