Report Paul Murphy
Plans submitted to Meath County Council for an agricultural storage shed close to the purported site of the Jacobite army on the eve of the Battle of the Boyne have been met with objection, including from An Taisce. M & J Enterprises have applied for permission for sheds including new entrance gates, access road and yard, surface water drainage and associated site works at Tubberfin, Donore. The application
states that M & J Enterprises has approximately 34 hectares of farm land and is seeking storage for general farm machinery and associated farm-related fodder and grain.
An Taisce states that the application site is within the buffer area of the Bru na Boinne World Heritage site, the area of the Battle of the Boyne site and is entered from the approach route to Donore Church archaeological monument and graveyard. “The heritage map data specifically refers to the more elevated Donore Church site as part of a location of a Jacobite camp and a purported location from which James II viewed the battle”, it states.
The organisation said that the vehicular approach is past a row of one-off houses, through a right-of- way access to the medieval church and associated graveyard. The proposed new shed is below the mid-point on the eastern side of this right of way. “The report from Jean McCorkell, landscape consultant, is primarily focused on the consideration of receptor points affecting the World Heritage site and buffer area and concludes in stating ‘The existing hedgerows, and undulating landscape surrounding the site provide a natural buffer for any
views from the Core and Buffer zones of Bru na Boinne’’
She states “In relation to Donore Church, the assessment is qualified in stating ‘Therefore, the negative visual impacts are restricted to travellers in the immediate vicinity to and from the Donore graveyard and surrounding arable fields”. An Taisce said in its submission to the county council “We submit that the following additional considerations are required in assessing this application – Impact on the Battle of the Boyne site; justification for size of shed having regard to 34HA size of associated landholding; impact of machinery movement on the present character of the boreen approach to the application site”.
Local resident Desmond Murphy has also objected. He states that the lane providing access to the proposed site is “totally unsuitable” for this type and scale of development. “The land is narrow and is only suitable for single-file infrequent traffic which would include pedestrians who use the lane to visit the graves of loved ones in the Old Donore Cemetery, dog walkers and also tourist groups who visit both the graveyard and the hugely significant site of the Jacobite camp which is adjacent to the graveyard”.
He states that the development and increased traffic would pose an unnecessary risk to people using the lane. “During seasonal harvest time activity, which included, more recently, haulage by long articulated vehicles of fertiliser to the lands, deemed the lane virtually inaccessible to the general public and locally, visitors to the graveyard.”
