Bray Head site may hold an ancient tomb - Duchas

The proposed site of an 18-hole golf course on the western slopes of Bray Head has been identified by Duchas as the possible site of a megalithic tomb, a planning inquiry in Bray has been was told.

A historian, Dr Colum Kenny, was giving evidence yesterday in the appeal against Wicklow County Council's decision to allow Frenchpark Financial Services to develop a 18-hole golf course on the head.

He said Bray Head had been referred to in ancient texts as Dun Brae, one of five acclaimed heights in Ireland.

The townland known as Ballynamudagh, where the golf club is to be, was cited in the Ordnance Survey letters of 18381839 as "the Giant's Grave", said Dr Kenny, who added that it appeared to be named from the Irish Baile Na Mbodach, which meant "dwelling place of the Churls".

He said it was almost certain from at least eight references which he provided to the inquiry that there was a tomb or a cairn in the area, and he was critical that no archaeological survey had been submitted or requested in connection with the original grant of planning permission.

The inquiry was told that Wicklow County Council granted planning permission for the golf course and club house in July of last year, materially contravening its development plan which was then less than four months old.

Frenchpark Financial Services is controlled by a local property developer, Mr Eddie O'Dwyer, who has entered an arrangement with Bray Golf Club to swap the Bray Head course and club house, when they are developed, for the club's existing nine-hole course at Ravenswell, in Bray town.

The value of the 50-acre Ravenswell site, which was the subject of a consultant's development study, was put yesterday at various prices ranging between £45 million and £70 million.

A Green Party councillor, Ms Deirdre de Burca, said councillors were presented with insufficient time to assess the development last July.

She also said that Wicklow County Council's own planning staff who assessed the application had opposed planning permission. She quoted from an internal council memorandum from a town planner, Ms Patricia Griffin, to the effect that the land should not be developed.

Ms de Burca said the land had been selected by the council as a candidate for Special Area of Conservation (SAC) status and was designated in last year's plan as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Mr Ciaran O'Brien, of the Novara and Sidmonton District Residents' Association, said a Victorian Way, which had been developed in the 1840s and traversed the site, would be demeaned by the development.

"The proposed right of way will be steep, will have views obscured and was obviously done by people with little knowledge or appreciation for the natural landscape of this area," he said. Mr Conor Glass, of the Wicklow Environmental Solutions Trust (WEST), said it was a growing trend among golf courses to develop apartments and other forms of housing around their courses, and there were no guarantees that Bray Golf Club would be able to resist that.