Plans by Sligo County Council to demolish a late 18th-century farmhouse in the village of Easkey as part of a local authority housing scheme have been criticised by the local branch of An Taisce.
The issue will come before a meeting of the county council on Monday when a number of new housing schemes are to be considered. The Co Sligo branch of An Taisce is now asking the Heritage Council and Duchas to intervene before the building is demolished.
According to An Taisce, Ivy House at Aderavoher, Easkey, is one of the few remaining examples of farmhouses of its kind. "This is a very rare survival of a surprisingly intact unadulterated 200-year-old two-storey vernacular farmhouse. It should not be wantonly destroyed," An Taisce spokesman Mr Nicholas Prins said.
Mr Prins, who is manager of the Lissadell estate, went to the High Court last year in a failed attempt to stop Sligo Corporation from demolishing most of the Harper Campbell warehouse buildings in Sligo town. The same issue has arisen in both cases, as to whether the buildings should be listed.
In a statement issued yesterday, the county council said Ivy House was not listed for preservation in the Co Sligo Development Plan. "It is a building that is considered by Sligo County Council to be derelict, dangerous and structurally unsound. It presents a danger to anyone entering the building, especially children, and is a blighting influence on adjacent development." Mr Prins said Duchas was about to draw up an inventory of architectural heritage for the county and he had no doubt the building would be included. It is being drawn up under legislation introduced last year.
Mr Prins said the council could easily secure the house if it wished to. Items taken from the house, including downstairs doors, a kitchen cupboard and bannisters went missing only since the house came into public ownership, he said.
The house predates 1837 as it is marked on the first 6 in ordnance survey map of the area published that year. The rooms are lime plastered. A thatched roof was replaced by corrugated iron in the 1960s but the original birch wood rafters are intact. Mr Prins said the house was particularly significant because it had not been modernised during Victorian times, apart from the windows. The interior was dry and appeared never to have suffered water damage. He said farmyard outbuildings should also be preserved.
Sligo County Council's statement said the building had "effectively reached its natural decline and there is not conservable material in it to consider it viable for preservation/con servation".
Ms Denise Clarke, a resident of Easkey, said opponents were not in any way against the local authority housing but they felt Ivy House could be incorporated into the new development. It could be developed as a resource centre for the local community with possible childcare facilities for families in the new houses.
"This is an opportunity to both preserve our fast-disappearing heritage and provide the services that policy-makers say we should develop."
Ms Clarke and Mr Prins also objected to the fact that the local authority, unlike any private developer, did not have to place a notice at the site informing local people of the proposed demolition. Many people, they said, did not see the notice in the local newspaper.