Walkers' protest prompted injunction, court told

A landowner obtained an injunction against walkers after fearing he would be "squashed" by a mass protest entering his property, Wicklow Circuit Court has heard.

Neil Collen of Old Boley said he felt he had "no alternative" to getting a temporary injunction last year preventing walkers entering his land in the Glencree Valley.

He was giving evidence yesterday on the third day of a case, seen as an important test of the laws on walkers' access, in which he is seeking to have the injunction made permanent.

His case is being taken against 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.

The case concluded yesterday and Judge Bryan McMahon is expected to deliver his judgment within the next four weeks.

Mr Collen said his father Lyle bought the land in 1967 and built a retirement house there in the late 1970s. His father, who died in 2001, felt it was "God's country".

Mr Collen, who built his own home nearby, told the court he had no problem with local neighbours crossing his father's land.

Over a period of 30 years, he had seen a total of five or six people walking on Lamb's Lane.

However, the situation changed in 2002, following the publication of a walking guide that included two routes along the lane. After this, it became "very heavily trafficked" by groups of up to 20 walkers.

Mr Collen expressed his concern to the authors of the booklet, who agreed to include an erratum slip saying they had wrongly described Lamb's Lane as a right of way.

Last year, however, he learned of plans by walkers to enter the lane as part of a "right to walk day" mass protest.

Mr Collen said he felt he was being "hoodwinked" and that people were trying to say things that weren't so. As a result, he sought and obtained the injunction against Mr Lenoach.

The witness said he believed Mr Lenoach may have "misconstrued" the lane as a right of way after talking to local people.

If large numbers of walkers were allowed to use the lane, his family's way of life would be "compromised". The declaration of a public right of way would "open up the floodgates" and prove detrimental to the area.

Anthony McBride, for Mr Lenoach, said the witness had not been present enough on the land to say who was walking down the lane.

Mr Collen agreed, saying that he could only speak of what he had seen.

His wife Pamela told the court she had never seen a walker on the track before the publication of the 2002 pamphlet. If the route were declared a right of way, her privacy would be taken away and she would be concerned for her two children. "I feel they wouldn't be safe out on the land anymore."

Kenneth Clear, who also owns land along Lamb's Lane, said there was nothing to indicate a right of way across his property when he bought it in 1967.

At that time the area was "extremely quiet, deserted and lonely" and the only people he came across were local cattle farmers. He grew trees on the land but lived elsewhere.

"I didn't see them as having a role to use the lane but let them do so as an act of neighbourliness." Mr Clear said he was "astonished" when the 2002 booklet described walks across his property. He made a "dignified protest" to the authors about their inclusion "without my permission and behind my back".

Mr McBride pointed out that a public way did not have to be registered for it to be a right of way.

Mr Clear, a solicitor, said he accepted this was the case.