Galway city's relentless growth is threatening Oranmore's "bluebell woods", also known as "Corcoran's", where herons, rooks and badgers live.
The woods are on private land on the seaward side of the Maree road beyond Oranmore village. Some seven miles east of Galway, the village has been earmarked in the county development plan for further housing.
Its main street is currently in a state of upheaval because of construction work linking a sewerage scheme to the Mutton Island treatment plant.
A proposal by O'Grady Construction Ltd to build 196 houses on the land of Gort has been lodged with Galway County Council. As the site overlaps residential, amenity and community zones in the county plan, and includes a candidate Special Area of Conservation (SAC) under the EU Habitats Directive, it is the subject of an environmental impact statement (EIS).
However, even as a decision on the planning application is awaited, the builder, Mr Michael O'Grady, has already been awarded a felling licence by the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Dr Woods, for three stands of mature trees.
An Taisce Galway, the Oranmore Development Association, the local boys' school and concerned local residents have objected to the felling licence and have appealed to the Minister to suspend it.
Some residents have planned a peaceful Good Friday protest, fearing that the trees may be felled this Easter weekend. Although both Duchas, the heritage service, and the county council were consulted before the licence was awarded, neither body has objected on any technical grounds.
Fears about Corcoran's wood date back some years to when the land came up for sale. In 1996 Ms Leonie King, owner of Oranmore Castle a kilometre away, wrote to Galway County Council. She also contacted local politicians, including the then senator and now Minister of State, Mr Frank Fahey.
Ms King, whose mother bought and restored the castle, was concerned about the impact of any future plans on the heronry.
"We would like to see these trees given a preservation order and a bird sanctuary order implemented," she said. "I do not wish to stand in the way of progress, but this small precious area of the land should be protected."
Replying to her, Mr Fahey said he had discussed this with the relevant county official. In a hand-written note at the foot of a copy of the county council's response, Mr Fahey told her the official "has assured me that a condition will be included in the planning approval to protect the heronry".
That official, Mr Brian Callagy, has since left the county council, and O'Grady Construction has confirmed that he now acts as a consultant engineer to the company and is involved in the preparation of the EIS.
Mr Callagy emphasises that the woodlands were examined at the time by the county council but were judged to be too dangerous for a preservation order. There is also a public liability issue when proximity to a residential area is involved, he says.
He points out that he was approached to work for the construction company only after he left the local authority.
The company emphasises that it was up to the Minister, not the local authority, to rule on a felling licence, and Mr Callagy's connection is purely coincidental.
The residents dispute the claim that the woodlands are in a dangerous condition, and have commissioned their own assessment. An English company, Kinmonth Tree Surgery of London, examined the three woods and said they were of particular historical and scientific interest, "with amenity value both as a recreational facility and as an important landscape feature".
Established some time between 1860 and 1890, the woodlands comprise European larch, ash, beech, sycamore, blackthorn, white thorn, elder and Scots pine.
They provide a canopy for a rich community of liverworts, mosses, lichens, bracken, bramble, wood-rush and bluebell, Kinmonth Tree Surgery said.
"Visible from afar, this wind-pruned hangar of trees is a conspicuous and attractive feature of the low-lying shore at the edge of Oranmore Bay," it added, pointing out that it has served as a valuable interruption to the gradual ribbon development of a rural landscape.
The naturalist Dr Micheline Sheehy-Skeffington has also appealed for the woodlands' preservation. Over two hours on a wet winter's afternoon, she compiled a list of a dozen herbs, including pignut and germander speedwell, four ferns, six shrubs or woody climbers, six mosses or liverworts, two lichens and four species of fungi, not to mention the half-dozen tree species, three of which are not native.,
"Far from being a senescing stand of trees, it is actively regenerating into a type of woodland more similar to that which would have existed in the area for thousands of years," she has said, noting that hazel is present in some parts.
The extremely prolific moss flora is unique to woodlands of the west of Ireland, many being confined to the boulders and rocky crags which are a remarkable feature of the glade, she said in a submission to Galway County Council.
Mr Michael O'Grady of O'Grady Construction Ltd commissioned his own consultants' report for his planning application. The report, prepared by J.M. McConville and Associates of Dunboyne, Co Meath, examined the three pockets of woodland in January. It notes that some of the trees are growing on a limestone pavement which is exposed, with little or no topsoil.
"This shallow, insecure rooting has resulted in distorted stems, with trees being predisposed to being blown over." A significant number of trees are dead, it says, including larch and ash, and the ash is infected with a bacterial canker.
The report says the mature trees have begun to decline, and that the younger trees are "self-seeded, poor-quality stock with insecure rooting", which will not respond to thinning as they are not "wind-firm".
"It would not be possible to retain and manage these woodlands within the proposed housing development," the report says.
Mr O'Grady told The Irish Times he would prefer to keep the trees if he could and had no plans to chop them down over Easter. As part of his licence approval, he has already planted some 3,250 new stock on land he owns at Lismoyle near Gort.
"There is no doubt that some of these trees at Oranmore will have to be knocked, because they are in a dangerous state," Mr O'Grady says. "But a mature woodland is always a benefit to a site, and every builder knows that."
He believes the objectors are scare-mongering as part of a general opposition to the residential development.
An Taisce Galway emphasises that it and Oranmore Development Association accept that the village will get more housing over the next few years, and this is clearly signalled in the county plan.
"We have no objection to the permission of a limited housing development on this site provided that it is carried out in a sensitive manner," An Taisce Galway says.
The Department of the Marine and Natural Resources would not comment last week. But in a letter last month to the Minister of State, Mr Fahey, the Minister, Dr Woods, said the competent authorities had been consulted before the limited felling licence was issued last year.
The licence carried a significant replanting obligation, the Minister said. His own inspector had examined the woodland and had found that many of the trees were very old and likely to blow down if not felled. He could see no grounds, "silvicultural or otherwise", to suspend the permit.
Ms King and her neighbours dispute his inspector's claim. Throughout the vicious storm of last Christmas the bluebell wood, with its herons, rooks and badgers, stood firm.
