Important Wicklow walking rights case begins

Wicklow Circuit Court yesterday began hearing an important test case in which a local landowner is seeking to prevent walkers crossing his land.

Mr Neil Collen, of Old Boley, is seeking a permanent injunction preventing walkers entering his lands between Enniskerry and Glencree.

His case is being taken against Mr Niall Lenoach, chairman of the Enniskerry Walking Association, which claims the route across Mr Collen's land, known as Lamb's Lane, is a traditional right of way enjoyed by locals for decades. Mr Lenoach is also seeking €38,000 in damages.

Circuit Court judge Bryan McMahon last evening visited the location of the disputed right of way at the centre of the case, in Glencree.

Mr Lenoach, of Monastery Grove, Enniskerry, told the court that he had walked the route several times a year since the early 1980s. It was a "typical" right of way on a well-worn track that was easy to follow.

His association, which was formed last year to promote walking and lobby for the inclusion of traditional rights of way in the Co Wicklow development plan, had an "excellent relationship" with most local landowners.

While he hadn't been blocked from walking down Lamb's Lane, others had. In a second case in the area, men wearing balaclavas had blocked a peaceful march and a barrier was put down across a right of way, he claimed.

Peter Bland, barrister for Mr Collen, described the witness as a "bit of an activist" who was once in the Irsp (Irish Republican Socialist Party) and had made "virulent demands" against anyone who owned land on which he wanted to walk.

Mr Lenoach denied this, and said he hadn't been involved in politics for over 20 years. Mr Bland said the case was about "how neighbourly ties of forbearance and tolerance have been distorted by agitation by those with a quasi-political agenda".

He said groups campaigning for walkers' access had subjected his client and another landowner, Mr Joe Walker, to "mass walks, rallies, assaults and breaches of the peace".

Traditional arrangements between Mr Collen and his neighbours on their "remote boreen" had been "distorted" by townspeople who sought to assert rights of access.

Counsel said his client's father, Lyle Collen, had purchased the lands, "a remote wooded area", in 1967. These were accessed from the Enniskerry road by a laneway which he described as "in considerable disrepair and no more than a boreen". The area was then a "remote, idyllic, secluded valley".

Lyle Collen built a house on the land in 1977 and lived there until his death in 2001.

With his permission, neighbours used the laneway and the bridge as a short-cut to the road and city children came to stay in a nearby hostel and went on nature walks in the area, counsel stated.

Rural Ireland was held together by such "codes of mutuality," he said. However, in recent years, an increasing number of ramblers' association had been formed.

In 2002, a pamphlet of local trails was published, which wrongly included the laneway as part of one walk.

When Lyle Collen raised this matter the publisher acknowledged there was no right of way and agreed to include an erratum slip. However, "the damage was done" and walkers started coming.

Mrs Peggy Barradell (65) told the court she was born in the Glencree valley. She went to school each day in the 1940s and 1950s along Lamb's Lane, and had walked the route ever since with her husband. No barriers were in place until 30 years ago, she said.

The case continues today.