Madam, – What a disaster for Lissadell, Sligo and the wider common good, the recent High Court decision may well be.
I can foresee a barren future for this iconic place – an empty and closed house, with no available financial resources, set in rushy fields and woodland with a puzzled public wandering up to the front door.
It was tragic that Sligo County Council, in its development plan policy proposals, never realised the incompatibility of managing and sustaining a 40,000 annual visitor number heritage attraction, let alone a world class concert venue, with absolute public access rights. In choosing to go with public access rights, it has strangled the goose that was laying the proverbial golden eggs.
The other tragic consequence may be for public access to private lands elsewhere in Co Sligo and further afield. It will not go unnoticed that, according to reports of the judgment in The Irish Times (December 21st), the county council essentially won the case because myself, and before me, the Misses Gore-Booth, did not carry on in the manner of a cranky and bad-tempered farmer, when neighbours came by Lissadell. It is a salutary warning to all property owners consenting to the public accessing their lands. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Risteárd Muirgheasa’s letter on right of way at Lissadell (December 30th) makes a lot of sense. But it must be remembered that it was the new owners of this house and grounds that initiated the High Court action against Sligo County Council. All offers of mediation or arbitration were rejected, and what we now have is a court decision after an unusually long and expensive hearing. Personally I think that any other court decision would have turned a lot of law on its head in regard to such matters.
I do not believe that the world is going to fall in with right of way restored during daylight hours. People in the area are reasonable and I am sure the place will remain open.
I am rather surprised at the attitude of a lot of people who support the present occupiers in their stance. Would they have given the same support to the landlord Gore-Booths if they had acted in such an abrupt and arbitrary manner? – Yours, etc,