Sir, - The Wicklow Mountains provide some of the best hill walking in Ireland and rightly attract thousands of tourists each year. My wife and I persuaded some of our friends from England to join us for a week's holiday, and I am pleased to say that we all had a very enjoyable time.
I used some of my well thumbed guidebooks to plan our walks, but sadly we encountered obstacles in our way on some of Wicklow's more established walks. We had planned to walk from Bray head to Greystones, using the cliff path, but as the path was temporarily closed due to erosion we decided to climb Bray Head and use one of the many paths at the summit, to continue to Greystones.
Unfortunately, when we got to the top our way was barred by barricades across both paths and official looking notices advising us we were on a "farm", and we could not continue without permission. Since we did not wish to break any laws, we reluctantly decided to return to Bray.
I would have regarded this incident as isolated, had not the same thing occurred the next day. My friends had climbed Lugnaquilla and were returning by a path recommended in one of my guidebooks. When, towards the end of the walk, they encountered an identical sign. Fortunately they were near the public road, and could walk along the perimeter fence of the property without trespassing, but this added half an hour to the walk. It could have been finished in five minutes had they been able to use the route barred to them.
Hill walking is one of the main attractions of Co. Wicklow, yet ironically it seems that there is a determination by some landowners to keep walkers off their property. Clearly they are determined to protect their fields, but at what cost to the tourist industry? Here in England, rights of way for walkers are jealously guarded by both by the walkers themselves and by the law.
For instance, landowners are legally obliged to maintain existing rights of way, on pain of heavy fines. The legal situation in Ireland is, I believe, different, in that rights of way as such do not exist - allowing landowners to close off even well known paths to the public whenever they see fit. Yours, etc.
Hammers Lane, Mill Hill,
London NW7 4BY.