On a damp and drizzling summer Saturday in Mayo, thick mist clings to bog and boulder. Only the anglers are cheerful. Someone who isn't going out to sea with rod and line talks wistfully about the sun.
Tourists get a sympathetic wave on the road, as they peer vainly out of car windscreens. Could that shadow be Achill Island? Does anyone sell postcards of constant rain? Locals seeing signs of depression in their visitors wonder if they will ever want to return. And if they don't, what will become of the ghost villages, built on the back of the seaside resort tax incentive scheme?
One such venture, the subject of a successful appeal to An Bord Pleanala, may yet be built on the Currane Peninsula in the lee of Achill. Mayo County Council has granted planning permission for a scaled-down version of the original proposal by Corran Cottages Ltd., a company backed by Mr John Clarke.
Some 10 houses are proposed for the same site on Currane, overlooking Achill Sound, instead of the original 18. Mr Padraig Hughes, the council's secretary, says the local authority believes the second application to be "in accordance with the proper planning and development of the area". There is one additional condition, relating to the height of the lower five dwellings.
Cairde For Currane, the residents' group which had appealed the original decision, is objecting for a second time; the argument being that there is little difference between 10 and 18 houses where amenity value is concerned. An Bord Pleanala's ruling against the original scheme was on the grounds that the development would be out of character and visually obtrusive and would interfere with a view or prospect of special amenity value. That argument still applies, according to the group.
Ironically, two of its supporters, Pat and Treasa Walsh, are facing their own battle. Planning permission which they sought for one house of their own has been refused. Mrs Walsh was one of the first to take the stand during the oral hearing last January against the Clarke scheme.
She remembers the day she heard the news about her own case. "It was our 40th wedding anniversary. I was expecting only cards in the post. I turned to Pat and said that that was some day to remember."
A grandmother and mother of five, Mrs Walsh and her husband returned to Currane from Dublin two years ago. It is her home. She would like to see at least one of her five children putting down roots there, too. That one could be Mary, who is living with her husband, Fran, and two young boys in San Francisco.
Every summer, without fail, they return to Mayo. Their long-term aim may be to come back for good. The plan was for a low-roofed, stone-wall, eco-friendly house which could be wired for an IT home-based business.
Mayo County Council refused on the basis that it was an area of special amenity, and that the land drainage was not suitable for a septic tank.
"We had engaged an expert to address the land drainage problem, but we told the local authority we couldn't spend money without planning permission, which seems reasonable," Mrs Walsh explains.
The family accepts that county development plan policy is against building on the seaward side of the road. However, the house would not have obstructed the view; and there have been precedents where there has been a similar rise in the land before the shore and the local authority has still given permission, according to one environmental surveyor. The Walshes commissioned an environmental survey themselves. There were no local objections. There was no other site available on their land.
That the local authority should then back a scheme which was opposed in the first instance by 95 per cent of households in Currane and neighbouring Gobnahardia is a blow to the morale of a family with links dating back seven generations in the area. The Corran cottages development is on the seaward side of the road also, but not the main road. However, there is an existing building on the site.
"We welcome anything that brings in income to this area," Mrs Walsh says. "But all we are going to get is a transient population. And who will own all these houses when the tax incentives run out?"
"I can understand how unfair it might seem", Mr Padraig Hughes, county secretary, says. "But we judge each application on its merits." In any event, he says, both cases are now under appeal.
But time has moved on already for Treasa's daughter and son-in-law. They have already lost a year, waiting for a decision. For them, and many others like them, Government policy to encourage people to move back to the west and regenerate the Atlantic seaboard simply doesn't exist.
Over on the island, Achill North West Ltd, a non-profit-making community development company, has already expressed its concern on several occasions about the general state of planning in the region. There are currently some 100 applications for holiday housing schemes there, and residents have objected to 54.
"So we don't object to holiday homes en bloc," Mr John McHugh, of Achill North West, says. In fact, the company welcomes some of the economic benefits which may accrue directly or indirectly from these projects.
The problem as it sees it is that "large-scale and inappropriate projects of unsuitable design" are being encouraged, while local people with older, traditional houses are not in a position to develop them for tourism use.
Achill North West believes that a concurrent scheme of grant aid to local residents to restore traditional cottages for tourist accommodation would directly benefit the local population, and would by definition help to conserve the character of the villages.
"It is vital that local residents are given a say in the planning process for their own villages, and a stake in the future development of tourism on the island, " it says.
