Tuesday 4th October 2005

 

 

Dancing on the last piece of grass in Dingle.

 

 

Standing by the inspiring new craft and food market last Friday, I was witness to a new phenomena in Dingle. A lorry jam. Two monstrous thirty three ton trucks, the Trallee bus and a 'low-loader' laden with a huge JCB, served to block the road for about fifteen minutes. As if to draw attention to the spectacle the rearmost driver gave vent to his frustrations with periodical blasts on his klaxon. Intrigued, I stayed to find just how many of these lorries pass through this 'quaint' Dingle sea-frontage. A staggering thirty two passed me in one hour. The mathematics is simple, in the four hour peak period from ten in the morning, some 128 massive trucks shake and rattle their way through Dingle's most visited street. If you include the smaller trucks, JCB's, industrial tractors and all manor of construction vehicles, the average visitor would be forgiven for believing that Dingle was an industrial complex of some size.

Once clear of Dingle and heading 'out west' the situation gets worse. I followed one lorry with a full load as it turned off from the congested Milltown roundabout. This lorry, swaying alarmingly as it squeezed passed the on-coming traffic, regularly clocked 90 kilometres an hour. How many times have visitors and locals alike silently prayed as they are faced with one of these monsters, turning a tour around the beautiful Slea Head Drive into a nerve-wracking adrenaline buzz. If its bad for the drivers then it is ten times worse for cyclists and pedestrians who literally take their lives into their hands if they try to use any but the smallest backroads, though it must be said that these roads do allow people to get a glimpse of the wild and lonely hillsides that feature so strongly in the holiday brochures.

 

It appears that there is a lot less of the Peninsula's lonely wild landscape left to see. Holiday and second homes spring up like a fungal infection. Half built concrete buildings, with a coming and going of heavy duty construction traffic, litter the countryside. The pastel contours of the finished articles have all the charm and traditional warmth of a Roman military camp, and certainly no invasion has ever been so thorough. From the ranks of identical barracks built in Dingle, to the small communities 'out west', a continuous band of off-the-shelf catalogue homes flank the main roads. They block out the hills, creating an urban landscape in the very wilderness that the visitors pay to see.

And pay to see they do.

In the summer the heaving roads are stretched to capacity, and to service them new garages, shops, leisure centres and other tourists 'traps' appear. The dart boards and dominoes of the pubs, where folk used to gather for a chat have been magically transformed into designer bars of wood and light. These shining examples of international bar design are intrinsically unfriendly to locals. It could be that they even upset the very people who they cater for, a great many tourists complain about the high prices and lack of 'atmosphere'. Still the holiday companies whose coaches dominant the Slea Head Drive are happy; even if their drivers are not, forced as they are to manoeuvre around the 33 ton trucks, leaving the local traffic to cope as it can. The chaos has led our council to come up with an ingenious way of overcoming these concerns. The councils answer is to 'improve' the roads. This means that more coaches can now be brought in to Dingle. The new roads have a big effect on the local population as well. Cars now travel to Tigh Bhric's on a smooth straight ribbon of asphalt. At night the cats-eyes illuminate the sides of the road in orange and white strips more reminiscent of Star-Wars than traditional Ireland. Judging by the cars that speed down this road the improvement has worked, they regularly travel at over 70 mph, getting drivers from the Brandon Hotel to the Pub in next to no time. The vastly improved road lures most drivers towards an unsafe speed, unsafe for a road that at any time you might meet stray animals, or even humans. I suspect that those in the Council were so concerned about coaches and lorries that they quite forgot the hiker or just plain pedestrian. There are no footpaths and no verge, in fact if you walk, you have to walk on the road. The result is that walking to Bricks Pub is an exercise in terror.

 

The effect of being the focus of so much investment goes a lot further then the scenery. The holiday industry has been 'let rip', with no obvious form of control. Few of the holiday homes meet with problems with the planning department, those that have done have usually been because local people have come together to oppose a scheme. The industry creates its own values. Land prices go astronomical, to the delight of anybody who isn't trying to by a house to live in. With houses prices as high as Dublin, the only option for many, is to move away. Yet the property values are what make the 'super-profits' for the building and holiday industry. A whole infrastructure is created by this industry, an infrastructure that we have to live with every day. It is taylor-made to the richer tourists. In the winter time it closes down and leaves the 30% of occupied homes to feel like ghost towns. Despite the huge profits it would appear it can not maintain a regular or frequent bus service, not one of the many buildings can be used as a community hall and none of the expensive new roads can have a footpath. It makes a car the only safe way to travel. In short we are part of an industry that has no considerations for the community. We may as well be in the grip of any industry, like, say, 'the concrete industry'

 

128 lorries a day bring concrete into Dingle. The concrete is used to build holiday homes, hotels, shops, and in fact, everyone's house. Stone, brick, wood or straw-bale homes scarcely get a look in, though you would have thought the 68 million Euro that the industry made in Ireland, last year, was a big enough lure to at least see a brochure campaign by the brick industry. You could be forgiven for thinking that something underhand is going on in the world of concrete finances.

128 lorries a day is big business, not just for the lorry companies but also for the cement industry. So who sees the

money? In Ireland just one company owns very nearly all of the cement suppliers. Cement Roadstone Holdings. An Irish based multinational business with a profit margin of 368 million Euro, (this makes them a major world player). However they are simply the 'biggest' in Ireland, holding a monopoly of the cement industry. It is, perhaps, more than a little disquieting to find that they could be more concerned with the ethics of their business than they are; for instance they supplied building materials for the Israeli barriers. Not many people know that this massive company used its financial muscle to buy out the brick industry, and in fact any other competitors that could provide an alternative to their own buildings. It would seem that CRH is not going to be able to regulate itself, so where is the government when it is needed? Surely not rubbing its hands in glee over the share in profits. Is this yet another industry that has been given free reign to wreak havoc? Many other places that are of equivalent beauty and unique heritage have specific laws as to what can and can't be built. In the Lake District in Britain, for instance, the houses have to be stone built to 'fit in' with the tradition. Many towns, as well, are carefully regulated to ensure the character of the place is not spoilt. We are not isolated for we are part of a global family of places of special beauty, 'The national Geographic' described our Peninsula as 'Perhaps the most beautiful place on earth.'

 

It would seem that we are intent on covering the Peninsula in concrete and asphalt, and whilst the holiday and cement industry take huge profits, we are left with the concrete blocks and the consequences of living in a heavily industrial part of the world. It would also seem that this destruction is being carried out at such a rate that nobody has had a chance to realise its full impact. We could learn from others, those parts of the world where big industries are not checked by laws, for there we find a tale of exploitation and ruined environments. From the spiralling holiday hotels and chalets cities of Tenerife to the open cast mines of America, unchecked industry has made life difficult for the communities who live with them. Our elected representatives really need to represent their communities more and big business less, to achieve the kind of balance that allows the Dingle Peninsula to retain its unique beauty, attract visitors and have a functioning social infrastructure for local people. Perhaps our council and our government will only realise what a grave error this lack of ruling is when the traditional music is danced to on the last piece of grass in Dingle.