Sometimes it is hard to know whether or not we are living in one vast April Fool's joke, and perhaps one day we'll wake up and find that it's April 2nd, and all the little jests are at an end. Which means, for example, that the proposal to build a huge mall and a vast new housing estate in Blessington, turning the last unspoilt market town in the Wicklow-Kildare-Meath-Louth belt around Dublin into a sprawling amalgam of Tallaght and Blanchardstown, will be no more than a one-day practical joke. But for the moment, that charming town, which is the western gateway to the Wicklow mountains, is facing utter ruin.
And then there is Ballymore Eustace. In his wisdom, the deputy county manager of Kildare, having received reports from his officials unanimously advocating a rejection of a request for permission to build over 400 houses on the edge of this three-street hamlet, gave the proposal the go-ahead.
Dormitory town
Thus an intensely self-reliant community of a few hundred souls, the vast majority of whom work and shop locally, is to be transformed at the scribble of a bureaucratic signature into a dormitory town of a couple of thousand people. And so Ballymore will be reduced to being the main but thoroughly congested thoroughfare to Dublin for a suburban excrescence which has been imposed upon the village against the unanimous will of its population.
To be sure, it has not all been bad news: the magnificent Hunter's Hotel, one of the truly great Irish institutions, was spared by the decision of Wicklow County Council not to grant planning permission for an industrial estate there. The proposal exceeded April Tomfoolery at its most hallucinogenic. Lewis's topographical dictionary for 1839 remarked: ". . . and at Newrath-bridge is a superior family hotel. . .which has long been celebrated for the beauty of its situation and the excellence of its internal arrangements." Yet Liam Kavanagh TD actively campaigned to have an industrial estate built alongside this legendary hotel, which assuredly would have brought ruin on it. Perfect.
What will be the attitude of Wicklow County Council to the latest proposal to build a caravan park in Hollywood Glen on Church Mountain? At first sight, the proposal is wholly risible and good for a thigh-slapping laugh; but then so too is the proposal to rape Blessington, and that plan, which combines idiocy with brutal insensitivity to a high degree, is being seriously presented before Wicklow Council. And the plan to transform Ballymore Eustace into Ballymore Liketallaght was also thought utterly ludicrous, opposed by the local population, local councillors, local TDs, and local officials; and while they were all laughing, planning permission for this witless monstrosity was granted.
Amusement park
So does this mean that Church Mountain will be gradually turned into a caravan park? Why not? Is that not progress? And perhaps a permanent amusement park could erected in the village of Hollywood, which developers would doubtless regard as a backward little place. It has merely a pub and a stream passing over the road just below St Kevin's church, which has a uniquely groined stone roof, and stained glass given by the Marquess of Waterford - proof surely to the developer-eye of the superstitious primitiveness of the area. Perhaps it could be cleared to make way for a heliport, for the convenience of guests to the caravan park?
Possibly a supermarket could be constructed there too. And maybe Liam Kavanagh, disappointed in his ambitions to have an industrial estate built in Rathnew, might campaign to have one constructed instead in what remains of that untouched and horrible wilderness beside the spanking new Hollywood Glen Caravan Park?
Or maybe Wicklow could build its waste disposal incinerator there. Why not? Kildare County Council has received proposals for the construction of a vast incinerator just outside Kilcock with a capacity to burn 150,000 tons of waste a year. Assuming it's working seven days a week, that means about 430 tons of waste a day will be incinerated. In a decade, Kilcock has been transformed from being a sleepy little village into a large dormitory-suburb; but it remains in essence an agricultural area. I am unable to describe what it will become if this insane proposal goes ahead.
Airborne effluent
For what word exists to describe a waste crematorium in the middle of the flatlands of Kildare which will be 15 storeys high, surmounted by a chimney which is in itself the height of Liberty Hall? What word exists to describe the intention to place such a plant, producing many thousands of tons of airborne effluent a year, in the middle of an agricultural zone in which there are so many estates with young families? What word is there to describe the congestion caused by hundreds of trucks servicing such a place? What word is there which describes the mentality which unwaveringly and unflinchingly seeks to bring ruin, pollution and despair to so many blameless communities around Kilcock?
More to the point, what is going on? How could anyone seriously contemplate any of the above proposals? As things stand, only one - the plan to rape Hunter's Hotel - has been defeated. All the others stand ready for approval or implementation. With a few scribbled signatures here and there, we can soon undo the priceless beauty of this island; and future generations will very properly dig up our bones and throw stones at them.