July 28, 2025 • 63 mins
Why are no trespassing signs appearing on Irish mountains that hikers have accessed for decades? Can walkers really sue farmers when they injure themselves on private land? What happens when busloads of tourists arrive at remote trailheads with no permission from landowners? Our guest John Smyth, a hiker with 20 years' experience in Connemara and volunteer with Mountain Meitheal Ireland, reveals how Ireland's hiking landscape has transformed from quiet trails to crowded mountains - and the growing tensions this creates.
John witnessed this dramatic shift firsthand, from days when you could have entire mountain ranges to yourself to the current reality of overflowing car parks and commercial guides leading groups across private farmland without permission. The Wild Atlantic Way's success, social media promotion, and COVID-19's outdoor boom brought thousands of new hikers to mountains that remain privately owned. Unlike Britain's established rights of way, Irish hikers rely entirely on farmers' goodwill. That goodwill is wearing thin as fences get damaged and livestock are stressed by unleashed dogs.
In our conversation, we explore practical solutions that are emerging to address this situation, including three-way partnerships between hiking clubs, Mountaineering Ireland, and Rural Recreation Officers aimed at building stiles and maintaining trails. We discuss liability concerns that keep farmers worried, the importance of proper hiking etiquette, and successful models like Kerry's collaborative approach to managing access. This episode offers essential insights into respecting the land and the people who own it for anyone who loves Ireland's mountains or is interested in land access.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
In episode 202, we spoke withPaulik Galbraith about his book where
he was talking about the landaccess and that was very specific
to the UK and UK realities.And after that episode was published,
a listener messaged me to talkabout Irish realities of land access.
(00:21):
And it quickly become thatJohn, who is our guest today on the
podcast, has quite a lot ofexperience in hiking and in issues
of land access and clearly hadall those things very well thought
out. And so today we are goingto talk about land access and issues
related to that from theperspective of Ireland. And obviously
(00:46):
this is Conservation andScience podcast where we take a deep
dive into topics of ecology,conservation and human wildlife interactions.
And I'm Tommy Serafinsky. Ialways strive to bring you diverse
perspectives on the topicsthat we cover. And today is one of
those diverse perspectives.John, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
(01:06):
I'm glad you responded to Ithink it was either post on social
media or one of the threadsand you responded with quite a few
posts telling us and everybodyyour your thoughts. And obviously
you have a huge experience inissues of land access and hiking
and so on. So maybe just a fewwords of introduction, what you do,
(01:28):
who you are, what you do andwhen you operate in Ireland.
Yeah. So my name is John Smithand I've been hiking for about 20
years. Actually, it's the 20thanniversary of joining the hiking
club in Galway, which I joinedwhen I moved to the city here. And
so I've been hiking for thelast 20 years, mainly in Connemara,
(01:51):
and since 2018, I've also beenpart of a group called Mountain Metal
Ireland, and I'm one of theorganizers of the west of Ireland
Branch. And what mountainmetalIreland do is repair upland trails.
And there's six differentgroups around the country. Some of
(02:13):
them work on Kilcherland, butin the west of Ireland, we work on
private land in cooperationwith the Rural Recreation officers.
And we've done some workbuilding styles on land in cooperation
with Mountaineering Irelandto, you know, where there's issues
(02:34):
where fences are being brokendown and things like that. So I've
seen it from the point of viewof a hiker who wants to go out in
the hills and hike, but alsoas part of a group where we see where
some of those tensions canarise with the volume of people accessing
the hills. And my background,I grew up on a farm, so I totally
(02:54):
understand the farming aspectas well. And I have to confess the
thought of a lot of peoplewalking over our family farm when
we had it wouldn't fill mewith much enthusiasm. So I'm particularly
sympathetic to the farmer'spoint of view.
And look, this is probablyevery time we talk about land access,
I'm saying I'm repeating thesame thing. So I need to repeat the
(03:17):
same thing now that I canequally make an argument for both
sides because, you know, fromthe perspective, like you said, from
perspective for the, you know,outdoors person, outdoorsman who
wants to access land and justrecreate, do whatever. And then also
from the perspective of thelandowner is like, hey, it's my property,
you know, so I. It is, it isvery interesting, let's say, topic
(03:39):
also, also for. For listenerswho are here for a long time and
those who are not for a longtime. When that podcast started probably
seven years ago, it was calledTommy's Outdoors, and the profile
was a little bit different.And I always wanted to do an episode
about hiking back then, and Ieven had one, but it was like, not
(04:01):
really in the Irish. So thisis like a sort of like all things
are coming together now I haveyou here and, and we're going to
be talking about hiking, butnot about hiking per se, but also
from the perspective of landaccess. Okay. So I would like you,
you know, first of all, youhave like a 20 years of experience
and you, I think you saw thetransformation, how the things change.
(04:24):
So over these two decades, youknow, you mentioned like, it was
like a small community ofexperienced hikers, walkers who were.
Who are doing their stuff. Andnow, you know, like, I think you
use the term boat, busloads ofhikers, which is very descriptive
and like, you can, you can doso. So paint us a picture. You or
(04:45):
what changed in Comnen MaraMountains over the last 20 years.
It's funny, when I wasthinking about the podcast this evening,
I had a memory of meetingsomebody I knew maybe 15 years ago
at a walking festival down inWalford or somewhere down there.
And she had moved from themidlands of the west up to Dublin.
(05:09):
And she would say, it's reallyhard to join club. They have waiting
lists. And I was, I wassurprised because in the west of
Ireland that wasn't an issue.And really what's happened is that
the, if you like those issuesthat were kind of already there in
the east, you know, theWicklow Mountains with just a huge
volume of people has nowarrived in the west. And, you know,
(05:33):
it kind of started when I, youknow, when I was hiking 15, 20 years
ago. You could, you could hikethrough the bends or the 12 bends
or the Mam Turk mountains onthe best of days and not see anybody
else. You'd be the only group.And occasionally you'd meet a tourist,
like a hiker who was used tomaybe alpine hiking or whatever,
(05:55):
and they'd rave about. Iremember meeting a French hiker in
the 12 bends years ago and hesaid, this is fantastic scenery,
but where is everybody? Like,I can't believe I have these mountains
to myself. And then I thinkthe start of the change in the west
really started with the wildAtlantic way. And from a tourist
(06:16):
point of view, that was reallysuccessful. It made a lot of places
that were there moreaccessible. It mapped them out and
people could create routes andstart to visit places, and that volume
sort of increased. Then ofcourse, you had the whole social
(06:36):
media, so you had people doingthese hikes and they put it on social
media and it would look superand, you know, they'd be raving about
it. And that attracted otherpeople. The hiking apps, of course,
moved from dedicated GPS unitsto phone apps, and you could share
(06:57):
those. So I mean, to give anexample, you can, you know, you can
download lots of routes forMuiri, which is, you know, at the
mouth of Killery Fjord. Now,that's a tricky mountain to hike
on. A lot of the approaches,one of them is not so bad. And when
you get to the top, like, ifconditions aren't really good, that
(07:17):
can be a tricky situation.They're in place. But you have people
downloading that and justwandering up on their own. And like,
that's not a mountain, really.You should hike on your own. But
our club will meet peopleregularly on their own up there.
They're not really togged outfor the weather to change suddenly.
(07:39):
And then, of course, Covid wasthe final thing, because a lot of
people discovered theoutdoors, which was great, but it
kind of went then from peoplewho were in hiking clubs, which is
really a small percentage ofthe country. I googled Mountaineering
Ireland's membership, and it'sless than 16,000. So it's a small
number of people, but you havetens of thousands of other people
(08:01):
now who will just checksomething online and decide, hey,
we should climb here or weshould walk here. And they may be
looking at a trail that theydownloaded from a seasoned hiker,
but there's no context on theaccess or where you're going to park
or whether really that accessis no longer available, or more importantly,
(08:24):
it's the time of the year whensheep are lambing and that's not
a good time to visit. Therewas an issue Just there, not so long
ago. Where? On Abbey Hill inthe burren with the other side of
Galway Bay. And it's a verypopular. It's a very popular walk.
There's a boring there. It'snot a very strenuous hike. But somebody
(08:45):
led a night walk there duringthe. I think it was the calving season.
And the farmer was like, Idon't mind people hiking, but that's
the one time of the year youjust cannot have people wandering
up in the darkness becauseit'll scare the cattle. And, you
know, he was so he, you know,that message went out to the clubs,
but the clubs are only a smallnumber of the people who will, you
(09:07):
know, decide, oh, do you knowwhat? It'd be great fun to do a night
walk on Abbey Hill justbecause the sheer volume of people
who are doing outdoor stuff.
Now question that I have isthese mountains, when people are
walking, like, is this, like,fundamentally private property? Is
it belong. Does it belong tothe state? Like, what is the ownership
(09:31):
and how this is regulated formajority of it? Because one of the
comments that you made that,okay, the situation, the regulation
is a little bit different thancompared in the uk, where in the
UK it seems like a discussionrevolves into large estates. While.
And what was funny is thatPatrick's comment on the 202 episode
(09:56):
was that access in Ireland isrubbish. We don't have those large
estates and the access isrubbish. So I'm curious, like, what's
your take on this? Do youreally think that the access is rubbish
because we don't have thoseestates? And at the same time, you
know, how does it work thatall this hiking is going on on the
land, this private property, essentially?
(10:18):
Yeah, it's a good question.And I don't think. I don't think
access is rubbish, but it isbecoming worse. And it turns to your
original question. InConnemara, most of the land is privately
owned. Some of it is commonage. So the side of a mountain would
belong to 15 or 20 farmers andthey'd have grazing rights on it.
(10:42):
And then some of it is. Issingle. Single farmers. And really,
you know, the issue has been,of course, that for years, small
numbers of people were hikingon those mountains and it wasn't
an issue. The farmers reallydidn't care, didn't mind. They tolerated
(11:04):
it. And there's no upside fora farmer in Ireland, really, to allow
hiking on their land. There'sno benefit. The best that can happen
is very little damage will bedone. They're like, but, you know,
their fences get broken down.And I've even seen who I would consider
(11:25):
reasonably experienced people,you know, hopping over fences in
a way that as someone who'shad to put up fences when I was a
kid, I wouldn't be happy withthat, you know, straining the wire
and climbing gates at thewrong pier so that you're putting
a strain on it. Simple stuff.But really. And those are people
who are in hiking clubs. So Ican only imagine somebody who just
(11:46):
decided to go out for the day.You know, there's very little. They'd
have very little experience onwhat to do. But, but yeah, the land
is, the land is privatelyowned. I mean, in Britain they didn't
have a revolution. So those,those estates are, you know, they're,
they're centuries old and theyhave this tradition of, you know,
somebody owns a lot of land,there's tenant farmers on it. But,
(12:09):
and, and because it's verymuch a. An urban. I mean, most the
population live in urbanareas. That's only starting to happen
in Ireland. You know, mygeneration are probably the last
generation, maybe the onebehind it who really, where we were,
the majority were maybe fromthe countryside, are very small towns.
(12:32):
But as time goes on, Irelandwill become a more urban country
as well, where most people,you know, they don't have. Won't
have a direct link to farminganymore. So the access today, I mean,
what we would considertraditional routes on the quite scenic
mountains in Connemara,there's just far more people showing
(12:55):
up at them and most peopledrive and then you just end up with
either 20 or 30 cars along aroad that's just not fit for them.
And in our club we try andcarpool. So if there's going to be
a. A choke point, we mightmeet at recess or mam. Cross or somewhere
(13:16):
and park cars there and thentake just enough cars to get to where
we're going. But, you know,but there has also been cases of
literally busloads of peopleshowing up to do a hike. And what
really bugs the farmers, ofcourse, is where you have professional
guides leading walks. And Imean, I really, from the farmer's
(13:41):
point of view, there's nopermission. And there's a couple
of places I won't name thembecause I don't want to give away
the actual farmer's name,where there's always been really
good access. But of latethey're discovering that there are
groups showing up, they havepaid someone, so they have a sense
of entitlement because maybethey don't understand the background.
But that guide has not gotpermission from the landowner. And,
(14:04):
you know, from the farmer'spoint of view, he's going to be picking
up plastic bottles and, youknow, bits of stuff that's fallen
out of rucksacks and whatever.And his fences are not designed to
be crossed by walkers. Like,they're designed to keep sheep in
place.
So.
The conflict and the potentialfor conflict is, I would say, growing.
(14:28):
So where we. Slowly butsurely, I think the access is becoming
an issue. And it's reallybecoming an issue because the goodwill
that landowners were showingis being used up with the volume
of people who are showing up.
How did that happen? Becauseyou mentioned those commercial guides
(14:50):
operating. Is that really acommercial guy, like a business,
or is it just opportunistic?The guy was up there, you know, 65
times, and now group of peoplewant to go. And he goes like, oh,
you know what? You pay me atenor and I'm going to. So I'm just
trying to. Or is it like, youknow, like, okay, there's a. Here's.
Here's the business. And arethey not aware or are they, like,
(15:13):
exploiting the goodwill of afarmer knowing good and well what
they're doing?
I. I don't know if I could bevery definitive, definitive about
it. I mean, you have outdoorspeople who, you know, who are professional
guides in the sense that theywill lead hikes on walking weekends,
(15:33):
which always do havepermission and, you know, the insurance
will be sorted out and allthat sort of thing. I don't really
know. I've never engaged withany of them. A friend of mine in
the club actually came acrossan advert for somebody who was offering.
And he knew the route and heknew for sure that route was already
(15:56):
a route where the farmer wasunhappy with the volume of traffic.
There was no way that that hadhad permission and. And, you know,
you'll get more people. Now,you see, it used to be that most
hikers were kind of from thegeneral catchment area, but, you
know, we have a pretty goodmotorway network now, so, you know,
you can get people coming froma much longer distance out to Connemara.
(16:17):
If you get on a bus, you know,you can. You can. You can travel
from. You can travel fromDublin, you can travel from a long
way away. So you don't really.You're just coming, using the facilities
and leaving. And. And then youmight not have the same duty of care.
And certainly if you're ahiker, I know myself. You know, when
(16:38):
you're in a hiking group, youkind of follow the leader and you
kind of expect that the leaderhas done the work and you don't ask
too many questions.
So no. And you know, likesomeone was upset, they saw that.
I could only imagine how upsetis the farmer who looks at it at
the adverts like, hey, this ismy land. Like, what are you doing?
Because, you know, like, Iguess it would be quite different
(16:58):
dynamic if that professionalguide goes to a farmer and said,
like, hey, this is what I wantto do. You know, I'm charging people
this now, you know, I'm goingto pay you, like, whatever for the
effort or for the, you know,as a courtesy. But yeah, this is,
(17:19):
this is terrible. And, andtell me so in, in general, like,
how is, you know, I'm justcurious, I'm just trying to explore
both sides of the story. Likeon one side the farmers are not happy
and they say, like youmentioned, like, oh, they're not
happy with the volume of thehikers. So what do they do? Like,
what's, you know, are there,can they close the trail? Can, can
(17:39):
they fence off? Can they, youknow, remove the people? And then
the, on the other hand, arethere people who are aware of that?
Like, hey, you know, becauseat some point they're aware that
they're on the land of thefarmer. Like, are they sort of understanding
while the farmer is not happyor they're trying to adopt or is
it like a, you know, like asense of entitlement through and
(18:02):
through?
Well, you see, the irony is ofcourse that the people who would
be more sensitive to thefarmer's needs are the regular hikers,
somebody who's joined a club.Like if you're in a Galway or west
of Ireland based hiking club,you generally have an idea of where
access is not a problem andwhere access might be a problem and
(18:25):
you try and avoid the placeswhere there might be a problem because
you don't want to annoy thefarmers. But they're a subset of
the people who can show up anyweekend and decide, hey, do you know
what, let's do the 12 bendstomorrow and they can drive down
from wherever parked car,hike, you know, I mean, the farmers
(18:45):
are not going to patrol themountains. That's not something they're
interested in. They might havean interaction with people. But to
be honest, you know, if it wasmy land, I would not want to spend
my days confronting people.You know, that's not something that
most farmers want to spend anytime at. They prefer to just go about
the business and farm and, andI, I mean, I even see it in somewhere
(19:09):
like Maumin, which is the masspath to a mountain pass in the mam.
Turks. And it's always been apopular walk and, and access there
is. Is. Is fine, but it's. Itis actually belongs to a farmer.
And there's a grotto up andit's a. Maybe it's a two or three
kilometer walk on a. On a. Ona pathway and. But there the volumes
(19:32):
have just gone completelycrazy because it's an easy walk to
do. And the only thing thelandowners ask is no dogs. And that
request is ignored pretty muchevery day. And, you know, and the
farmers could say, please, canyou leave the dog in the car? Or
whatever. And you know,because there's sheep everywhere.
(19:52):
And that's the one request.And it is, of course, the. It's the
people who are gonna drive outfrom Galway for the day and say,
hey, yeah, we could do mommy.And it's a nice hour. I will bring
the dog, get him out for anhour. And they'll walk past five
or six signs because there's alot of signs there. And it's just.
Yeah, it's just people, youknow, so. And you know, there'll
(20:14):
come a time when. And peoplehave been high, have been walking
that path because it joins twovalleys in Connemara. And the traditional.
It's called a masspath becauseif you lived in one parish but you
were born in the other, whenyou died, they carried the coffin
over the path and there's aflat rock on the top. So, you know,
for the rest of the coffin andsay a few prayers and, you know,
there's a grotto up there.This is a path that's steeped in,
(20:35):
you know, thousands of yearsof tradition. But, you know, it's
getting to the point where ifyou literally have so many people
showing up and, you know,disregarding the one request, at
some point, you know, it'sgoing to be very difficult for those
landowners to. To put up with that.
Like we said again in theprevious, most people are just specifically
(20:57):
want to get their dog out. Soif there's. If that's the reason
they there, they know they.They. They gonna ignore. They came
with a, you know, either theyknew and they. They gonna ignore
it. They were ready for that,or they already there with the dog.
That was the reason. Sothey're gonna ignore it. We're gonna.
I want to come back to thedogs in a second. But from your experience
(21:18):
and from your club experience,like, have you, as a club or as an
individual engaged withfarmers in Any way talk to them and
say like, hey, this is what'sgoing on, this is what we want to
do. And then I'm curious,like, what was the reaction and maybe
more general, what sort ofconversations did you or you as a
(21:40):
club ahead with the farmersabout this issue? Because surely
you discussed that.
Yeah, I mean, you know,Mountaineering Ireland do a lot of
work sort of where there'saccess issues that they try and get
involved in the try andmediate and, and try and find an
accommodation. And you know,and by and large farmers generally
(22:04):
do not object to if you likeproper hikers. But as I say, the
problem is that on the bestknown hills now, the volume of people
has gone way beyond whatMountaineering Ireland would represent.
So the challenge is that ingood faith our club could talk to
(22:25):
farmers about a particularroute that we've taken for years.
And in the past where therewas, where we would meet a farmer,
they'd usually ask, okay, whatclub are you with? And we said call
away walking club and that'dbe fine. But, but now with the volumes
of people, you know, you'vegot lots of people who aren't in
clubs and you know, they'rejust, they're just, they're just
(22:47):
out for the day. And that,that, that engagement, if you're
the farmer, it's like, well,who do I talk to? I can talk to Mountaineering
Ireland, but they're only onegroup. We have far more tourists
now because as I say, the,the, the, the Wild Atlantic Way is
really popular but, but peopleare coming from countries where access
(23:07):
is different and it's neverreally pointed out in, in any of
the tourist stuff. Oh, by theway, these mountains that are in
every tourist picture, youknow, you might, maybe you could
hold off from climbing thembecause why would you, you know,
if you, if you've come fromFrance or Switzerland and you think
wow, that, that's, that'ssomething I like climbing in the
(23:28):
Alps, I've climbed the 12bends. But you know, it's if, if,
if 10, 000 people do that,then you know, you just, you can't
get in or out of the place. SoI think, I think it's, I think it's
challenging for the landownersin the sense that who do they, who
do they negotiate with?Because it more and more you see
(23:50):
the, I mean, I don't want tosound exclusionary, but it is either
the more casual hikers orpeople who are maybe not as local
to the area and as sensitiveto it, but it is the volumes I would
say is. Is causing a hugeproblem because just you, just so
many people on trails thataren't really developed. I mean,
(24:12):
I was hiking in Snowdonia lastyear. I mean, you come to a style.
There's a style for the humansand the style for the dogs and the
trail is marked, you know, allthe way in really wild mountains
and there's agreement with thelandowners in terms of access. And
I mean, if you're from St.Joan, you came over to Ireland and
(24:34):
you assumed it was the same,you'd get a fright because it's absolutely
not the same.
So it's like implied that theaccess is agreed but isn't really.
It's been tolerated. Sort oflike in the unwritten, very.
Irish thing, we don't writestuff down and as a result it's,
(24:55):
you know, it kind of. Nobodyreally wants to grasp the nettle
of, well, how do we solve thisproblem? Because, you know, we have
to respect farmers ability togo about their business and it is
their land, but yet we don'twant to say actually we're only going
(25:17):
to have a chosen few who can,who can access the outdoors.
Is there a perception on thefarmer's side that they're just being
screwed over? So, for example,the likes of Wild Atlantic Way, this
is like a national nationwidecampaign, let's say an advertisement
(25:38):
and whatever turns out WhiteAtlantic Way. And at no point, and
actually now when you'resaying like, at no point I found
anywhere information of like,hey, by the way, you are accessing
private land and you walking,you know, it's just a courtesy of
a farmer who lets you. Becauseotherwise like. So is there that
(26:03):
perception on the farmer side?Because like, and then like, like
you mentioned, like, who am I,who am I going to talk to? There's
like no one point to talk toanyone. So do you see any, you know,
like, what is their, theirview on that? And do you see like
they're being more and moreannoyed and are they trying to do
(26:24):
anything about it?
Well, I mean, I, I don't wantto speak for farmers because I'm
really actually.
Yeah, yeah, of course. Butfrom your, you know, your, what.
You can gather, I, I mean, itkind of depends on the actual mountain
or area. Some areas aregetting really hit with just a lot
(26:47):
of traffic and I think forsome of those farmers, you know,
as I say, I'm not sure if, youknow, for farmers generally they're
represented by the Departmentof Agriculture and I don't know if
there's anyone in theDepartment of The environment or
(27:07):
the Department of Tourism,that is as voluble about. We need
to fix this because, you know,as the Department of Agriculture
would be for farmers, but forthe Department of Agriculture, it's.
Farming is, you know, it's forfood. And you know, actually if we
(27:29):
have to make a choice to justlet, let's just use the land for,
for farming and, and nevermind tourism and, and. And the other
stuff. And it's kind of agreat shame really, that, that, that
the people who should berepresenting farmers interests as
landowners and the widerthing, rather than just how much
(27:51):
food can they produce fromtheir holding. I, I think things
would be a lot better foreverybody if, you know, if the state
represented farmers in morethan just one narrow view, which
is agriculture, that it was asstrong for farmers on the environment
to say, okay, farmers have acontribution to make, but they also
(28:14):
need to be rewarded andacknowledgement acknowledged for
that contribution. And alsofrom the tourist point of view, the
Wide Atlantic Way is great forif you want a coffee shop or if you
own a hostel or a hotel, but,but if you're a sheep farmer in Connemara,
you know, now you can't getyour tractor past the camper van
(28:34):
or 100 camper vans or 200camper vans. So. So yes, I mean,
it's good for the localeconomy, but a lot of these people
are moving through and, youknow, other than where they're staying,
the benefit is not as, as, asimpactful for the landowners. And
the reality is people arecoming to look at the scenery. And
(28:55):
so, So I think, I think theway forward has to be that, that
there is a. There's a more.There's a wider view and a total
view of, of the contributionthat, that farmers have as landowners
and guardians of, Of. Of theland, of the landscape.
(29:17):
There's the most hated word,regulation, but, you know, like,
oh, you don't want reg. But atthe same time, if you're a farmer.
John, let's go back for asecond to dogs. For someone who listens
to that and say, oh, what arethe dogs gonna do? Like, what's the
problem with the dog? Can youlay it out? This is like a devil's
(29:38):
advocate question, really, butI just want to hear it from you.
Like, what are the mainproblems with the dogs?
I mean, I like dogs, but dogschase stuff. And, you know, every
year there are tales of, youknow, terrible tales of farmers finding
sheep, you know, savaged orworried or stressed or whatever,
(30:00):
and stressed sheep will abort.I mean, it's no fun finding that.
And similarly with cattle. Andthe thing about cattle, in some sense,
it's a bit more dangerous forthe dog owner because cattle will
turn in charge because that'stheir instinct. And I mean, during
COVID there was a tale inWicklow of a couple who'd lost their
(30:22):
dog, and it disappeared for afew days. And we chased a deer and
eventually found it. And, youknow, it was kind of a good news
story in the news, but thefarming organization was saying it
was a loose dog. Okay, it waschasing a deer, but it was chasing
the deer in sheep, you know.
What else was he chasing?
Yeah, you know, exactly. Hecame back two days later, so he was
(30:42):
hardly chasing a deer for two.So, you know, we really don't have
that. I see in the uk Justbecause I visited a bit, and having
been in Snowdonia a couple oftimes not so long ago, I was impressed
(31:03):
how they had. There wasfacilities for dogs that were dedicated.
If you're going to walk yourdog, walk them here. Here's the path,
and, you know, here's whereyou do it. And we don't really have
that at all here in Ireland.So, you know, people just show up
in, you know, somewhere andlet their dogs lose. I mean, it's
a bugbear of mine. I live inGalva City. You know, if I'm walking
(31:27):
down in south park or alongSilver Strand or wherever, people
happily watching their dogschasing the birds. And it's like,
yeah, but that's why no birdsnest here anymore. And whatever about
the city where. Okay, you canaccept that it's fairly busy. I mean,
you could. You can go out toConnemara and to some lovely beaches,
and there's a dog drivingevery single tern and oyster catcher
(31:50):
off its nest, and the owner'sjust going, hey, look, Shep, it's
having fun. You know, so it's.We don't really have a good. I don't
feel we really, as a country,have. Have good dog etiquette. And
when it comes to. Yeah, whenit comes to bringing them out on.
On land, I mean, you know,pretty much no farmer wants an animal,
(32:14):
even if it's on the lead on.On their land, because it just drives
the animals mad.
And especially, like, is.There's, like. And I don't think
this is, like, specific toIreland. I mean, like, everywhere.
Like, keep it. Keep your dogson the lead. And then people are
not keeping dogs on the lead.Oh. Because it's like, it's not gonna,
you know, harm. Like, I wantto just say two things here while
we. On the subject of the dogfor dogs for you, you obviously know
(32:36):
that, John, but for thebenefit of listeners and viewers,
number one, there are specialtraining places that can train your
dog to behave aroundlivestock. My friend runs one of
those training facilities andthey have like a regular dog training
thing, so it doesn't pull onthe lead and so on, but they have
(32:59):
like a specific specializedprogram to teach the dog behave around
the livestock. So that's onething. And that works like you give
it. You can drive with yourdog for a number of days or you can
leave the dog at the placewith him for a couple of weeks and
he does the training. Andthere's like a. More facilities like
(33:20):
that across the country. Sothat will help because that dog at
least knows what's up. Like,you know, like my friend says, like,
sheep looks funny, smellsfunny, and dog thinks it's a great
crack. So sort of do thatthing. And the other thing is people
who think that, oh, my dogwouldn't, wouldn't harm a fly. And
(33:43):
I know the story of, of, of a,of a person who had a dog who wouldn't,
wouldn't harm a fly. It waslike a, like a bigger dog and it
never harmed a fly. But thenhe found a sheep dead, killed by
his own dog on a farmer'sfield, and it was like, oh, shit.
Right. So obviously him beinga reasonable person, he went to the
(34:06):
farmer and, you know, squaredit away and that was the end of that
dog's freedom. So anyone whoknows anything about dogs and livestock
knows. So, like, folks, youknow, it's not true. Like, oh, my
dog wouldn't like, no, it'snot true. And sometimes, like you
said, sometimes the sheerpresence of a dog who just runs around
(34:27):
and wants to play that sheepdoesn't know that sheep gets stressed.
That's exactly it. Actually. Iwas up on Main. We were doing some
repair work on the trail acouple of years ago during the summer,
and I was very busy there, anda bunch of youngsters arrived up
in the car and one of them,she had one of these little kind
(34:49):
of toy dogs, a sausage thingof a yoke. And I thought, but again,
let it run free. I wasthinking, you know, you could just
carry that thing if you hadto, you know, but the signs are fairly
clear. And the second she putit down, this little thing that,
you know, once it was on theground, you could hardly see it over
the head, went straight forthe sheep and chased the sheep about
(35:09):
a kilometer in the End thefarmer actually had to come out and
collect the dog and brought itback. And I thought he was very restrained
actually, because I don'tthink I would have been as much.
And she was kind of. Well,he's never done that before and.
Well, he hadn't seen a sheepbefore, but the sheep didn't know.
It was basically an oversizedhamster. Like it was a dog and it
had a reaction and he drovethe sheep, you know, off down the
(35:30):
mountain. So you know, even ifyour dog is small for the sheep,
there's, there's millions ofyears of instinct which is I'm stressed
and I need to run away from,from that barking thing. And yeah,
it's not good.
Yeah, that farmer like, he'slike, yeah, he brought the dog back.
Well, yeah, lady is happy.She'd be happy that she got her dog
(35:53):
back because that dog couldjust like disappear.
Absolutely.
The farmer's shed. Listen,John, I just want to touch on another
aspect. Very importantliability question. And I, I think
this is not discussed nearlyoften enough and that is based on
(36:17):
what I know, sometimes asource of stress for farmers. I heard
about a story where there wasa, there was a boardwalk on the farmer's
land over the bog or somethingbuilt not by a farmer, but one of
those corporations withrecreational officer and so on. You
can, you can, you can talkabout this. This is sort of like
(36:39):
a three way partnerships lateron and, and lady had like a, you
know, shoes completely notsuitable for this sort of environment
and surface. And sure enoughshe twisted her ankle and she sued
a farmer. Right. Like to me itis outrageous. It is outrageous first
(37:01):
of all that the, that this,that the, this legal system in Ireland
is not such that would, youknow, kill that off right off the
bat because that lady shouldbe laughed out of the, whatever office
she, she went in. But it's areal thing. So can you lay down all
(37:21):
the issues related withliability and who can sue who and
like how does that work?
I mean Tommy, you, you, youask about what the legal system should
do. The legal system is itsfoundation, its funding is based
on, you know, people suingother people. And you know, every
(37:42):
time you see a court case thatmakes your blood boil. You know,
you got to remember, not onlydo the lawyers, that's what they've
been raised to do, but thejudge has come from that pool as
well. So it, you know, it's,you could run a whole podcast series
on, on, on liability in thiscountry and you, you definitely have
(38:03):
plenty of polarizing opinionson it. But if we take the land. I
mean, as I say, part of whatwe do in mountain metal is we build
some styles for farmers. Andthe first question is liability.
And in our case, they'reactually Mountaineering Ireland.
Cover it under theirinsurance, and we couldn't do anything
(38:25):
otherwise. And the farmerwouldn't. I mean, the farmer rightly
would not allow a style to beput on his land if he wasn't covered
under that insurance, becausethen he would be liable. And, you
know, there has been some.There's been some adjustments that
were made. I think in 2022,there was a case, 2017, where a woman
(38:50):
was walking on a path and shetripped and sued. I think it was.
I think Parks and Wildlifewere looking after them. And I think
maybe went to the circuitcourt first and she won her case.
But then on appeal to the HighCourt, it was overturned. But in
(39:11):
the intervening period, it wasprobably about a year. It felt like
a year at the time. I rememberwhen that case, the original case
went through, no trespassingsigns went up on every farm because
effectively there had been alaw introduced which was to reduce
the liability of landowners toprevent some of these cases where
(39:35):
really a landowner, somebodyhad come onto the land, caused an
injury, and then sued thefarmer's insurance or the landowner's
insurance. So in 2017, it wasthought, okay, we've dealt with that.
But then this case happened.Okay, it was overturned on appeal.
But in the meantime, for a lotof landowners, and I think the advice
(39:56):
from farming organizationswas, look, you need to protect yourself,
so at the very least, make itclear you're not welcome. And I think
that actually was the startof, you know, that. That whole skepticism
by landowners, which is. Evenwhen the government passed a law,
you know, a judge caninterpret it in a certain way. And
yes, it was appealed, but Idon't know about you, Tommy, but
(40:20):
if I had to go to the HighCourt to appeal something, I don't
have that sort of money lyingaround to do it, and.
Exactly. And the time and theheadache and.
The stress and the. Yeah,yeah, yeah. So the legal system is
not cheap and it's not fast,and that's a problem everywhere,
but it is a problem for landaccess. So coming back to. So if
(40:42):
you're in a hiking club andyou're a member of Mountaineering
Ireland, there is an insurancepolicy. In fact, it's about half
the fee, and that provides aliability insurance, so that when
you're hiking, there is cover.And the idea is that the farmer is
not liable. And as I say, In,I think, 2022, the law was updated
(41:10):
to go into more detail on theliability. And it really pushes the
responsibility to the personwho's come onto the land, and particularly
where you've come onto theland without the express permission
of the farmer. And theexpectation is, you know, if you're
hill walking, it's an activitywith a certain level of risk and
(41:31):
you have to accept theconsequences yourself. Now, I don't
think there's been anychallenges to that law, but you never
know. And you don't want to bethe farmer who gets a summons and
goes, hang on, I thought wewere protected from this. And then
who do you go to? So the landthing, we have a legal system in
(41:53):
this country that is. I don'tknow if it's worse than other countries,
but it feels like very littlecan happen without somebody having
to pay for it. The concept ofsomething being accidental, it seems
to be a strange concept. Herein Galway, they put down a cobblestone
(42:17):
street not so long ago, andthen they had to pull it up because
people were apparentlytripping on it the whole time and
suing the council. So now it'sjust tarmac. And I was thinking you
can go across Europe and walkcobblestone streets that have survived
wars and apocalypses andapparently the citizenship can get.
Can get over them just fine.But we have a liability situation
(42:38):
in our rather illegalsituation in Ireland where, you know,
where. Where a lot of lawsuitshappen. And, you know, just the.
A lot of the time insurancecompanies, you know, they're, you
know, if you run the businessand get sued, they say, we'll just
settle. It's cheaper thangoing to court. So. So a lot of that
happens. So the currentsituation is that I think since 22,
(43:02):
the duty of care is much moreon the walker or the, the intruder
or the, the person who is onthe land rather than the landowner.
But I don't know if it's beentested in court yet, so who knows?
Do you. Have you seen morelike trespassing, do not trespass,
you know, signs up since the,you know, when you started. Is it.
(43:25):
Is that. Is that the thingthat there is more and more of these,
like you said, farmers makingpeople aware that they're not welcome,
even. Even just. Just to be onthe safe side?
Yeah, I mean, well, Certainlyafter that 2017 case, a load of signs
went up. I mean, and all thosesigns are still there. I say compared
to 20 years ago, there's a lotmore signs, and I'm not surprised.
(43:49):
I know the farmingorganizations have, you know, you
can get signs which say thisis a working farm, you know, that
access is, you know, should beby express permission, all that sort
of thing. So. And it's kind ofa standard statement and you'll see
that on a lot of gates. And Ithink probably the farming organizations
(44:10):
have driven that. Butcertainly after that original court
case where the original onewhere the law didn't protect the
landowner, those signs went.
Up everywhere then gee, yeah,I would do that too if I were a landowner.
I would. Probably thegrumpiest landowner ever, to be honest.
(44:32):
That's what I'm saying. Canequally see, see both sides. John,
listen, let's switch the gearsa little bit and, and talk about
something more positive, not,not just to be like a. So negative
about it. Hiking at the end.It's a, it's a, it's a lovely way
to spend time. It's outdoors,it's on the fresh air. Tell me about
this three way partnershipbetween the club and the Mountaineering
(44:55):
Ireland and Rural RecreationOfficers. Like one of the early episodes
with like a rural recreationofficer, I thought this is the coolest
job title ever, recreationalofficer. So tell us a little bit
on these, on theseinitiatives. How do they work and
what's the goal?
There's a small group, I thinkthere's probably less than 100 of
us and we're always lookingfor volunteers. So anyone who comes
(45:18):
across as you could, it's veryeasy to join.
Yeah, we're gonna put thelinks in the description of the show,
by the way.
Super, super. So we'reaffiliated with Mountaineering Ireland
and actually their insurancepolicy covers us for the work we
do as well. But the ruralrecreation officers, every county
(45:40):
has one and they'reresponsible for all the way marked
trails in the counties. Nowactually I do think it is a cool
job and the people we'veworked with in Galway and Clare are
really good. They're veryenthusiastic and what they do is
of course they arrange thework. So in Clare, so you've got
(46:02):
these burren walks and a trailthat we have done a lot of work on
over the years is theBallyvaughan to Fynor Trail. And
that is a beautiful trail. Ifyou want to hike somewhere in the
burren on land on a trail thatyou have permission to hike on, you're
overlooking Galway Bay, youcan see all sorts of wildlife. We've
(46:23):
seen like peregrine falconsthere because they're breeding up
in the hill. And so the ruralrecreation officer will, will work
with the farmers, because thattrail runs through farmland. And
then they will work with us toarrange the plan of work. So. So
we've been fixing floodedspots on the. On the trail. We've
(46:48):
helped one of the farmers, whoactually is a stonemason, to repair
some of his styles. So he waskind of teaching us how to. How to
do the work, which is great.And obviously it's good to meet one
of the landowners as well. Andthen in. In Connemara, where there
has been some issues withfences being broken down by walkers,
we've put in styles. And so.So the. The RROs now actually. Sorry,
(47:15):
the styles. I need to becareful. The RROs are responsible
for the Waymark trails, butactually some of the styles we've
put in are not on Waymarktrails. We actually don't advertise
where they are. They're partof long hikes that if you. If you're
hiking through Connemara andyou're a more dedicated hiker, there
are certain points where youneed to cross fences. And we put
(47:36):
in styles to stop the fencesbeing broken down, but it doesn't
imply a right of way, which iswhere we have to be very careful.
And the farmer's anxious that,look, don't put this on Instagram,
don't put this in things. Sowe don't advertise where they are
because there's no implied.You still need permission from the
farmer to. To hike in those.To hike in those areas. But it's.
(47:56):
We do know that, or the farmerknows. Look, you know, a thousand
people a year will. Will hiketo this mountain ridge, and if they're
going over the fence, it'sbetter to go over a stile. So we've.
We've built those styles withtheir help. So the RROs. Sorry, that's
the styles. The rros say inGalway, looks after the Western Way,
which is the long path thatruns through Connemara and all the
(48:22):
way up to Westport. And we'veput up a style there. That's an official
one. We replaced one and we'vebeen doing different, fixing flooded
patches and. And also the masspath on Maumin is part of the Western
way. So we've. We've beenbuilding, you know, cross drains.
It's on the side of amountain. So, you know, the thing
(48:44):
about mountains is the, the.It rains all the time and the rain
just has one ambition, is towash the entire path off the side
of the mountain. So. So we doa lot of water work in terms of drainage,
natural drainage. So we'reusing kind of the thing with the
mountain mel is we use naturaltechniques. So we're not. We're not.
(49:05):
We're using, you know, crossbars and water bars and cross drains,
using the stone that's there.So we use the local materials, not
using machinery or anythinglike that. So. So the ros kind of
organize the permission andthe access with the, with the farmers.
It's kind of an unsung. It'ssort of an unsung job. I didn't know
(49:29):
a lot about what they didbefore I got involved with mountain
mail, and they're really good.So along with Mountaineering Ireland,
they're often involved inaccess discussions. And what they're
trying to do is get moretrails that are waymarked so that
there is permission and theycan appear on maps and the farmer
(49:50):
is, is happy with the access.You know, so if, if it's the responsibility
of the ro, it's effectively,effectively an official trail. And
some of those run throughKielsha land. So. So a lot of. In
some counties, I wouldimagine, you know, the RO and Kielsha
do a lot of work togetherbecause the actual. All the trails
are, they're actually owned byKielsha, like in Dublin, the Dublin
(50:12):
mountains. All those trailsare, are Kielsha woods. And, and
we've actually done some workin a couple of those building boardwalks
and things like that, so.
Very interesting. John, tellus, for people who are interested
in hiking, they like to go outand they like to hike and maybe they,
they getting a little bit ofa, you know, like a surprise. Now,
(50:33):
listening to us, what would beyour, your advice? So I presume that
one advice would be, you know,join the club, join the, Join the
hiking club, join the walkingclub. But maybe it's, you know, for
some reason, maybe there's nowalking club around. Maybe they don't
know whether it's like walkingclub around. Like, what would you,
(50:54):
what would be your advice to,you know, just, just try to find
a farmer first and ask forpermission or, you know, do what
you do. Like what, how what?Like, you know, I'm fishing for some
words of wisdom for people whowants to be okay. But at the same
time, it is understandablethat maybe, you know, suggesting
(51:16):
that, oh, you're going to, youknow, locate and identify all the
landowners on the hike thatyou want to do.
Yeah.
And then contact them all andask for permission.
Like, maybe a bit stretch, nottoo bad. I think joining a club is,
is the key thing. And I mean,I know we've talked a little bit
talk quite a lot about thenegative aspects. I mean, it is still
possible to hike in Connemaraand, you know, it's as good a time
(51:40):
as any to say a big thank youto all the farmers who still permit
it and whose goodwill, youknow, we still rely on. So, you know,
it's not like the mountainsare closed, but for sure, if the,
if, if, if some of theirconcerns aren't addressed, it's going
to be harder for them to, to,to demonstrate the same level of
(52:02):
goodwill. But, but in termsof, if somebody wants to start hiking,
the best thing to do is join aclub. Because, because if it's a
responsible club and if it's amountain iron club, they generally
are fairly responsible. Youknow, the chances are those access
issues at least areidentified. So you'll know if there's
a certain path that really youshouldn't be on. The club will know
(52:24):
that. And I mean, in the westof Ireland, the club I'm in is Galway
City based, but there's acouple of clubs in Connemara where,
you know, the members includefarmers who own land. And you know,
so it's not like it is notlike it's a bunch of strangers showing
up. And I know in Galway, alot of the clubs, you know, the membership
(52:48):
kind of changes between clubs.So you might have people who started
in the Galway Walking Club andare now in the Ma' Am Turk Walking
Club or in the, some of theother ones. And you know, they, the
people there are, they'relocals. So, so it's, it's always
better to, I would say to, tojoin a club, particularly if you
(53:09):
don't really. If you haven'tbeen doing much hiking before. And
it's probably no harm even toreach out to a club. So if you're,
if you're based in Dublin, youthink, you know, I'd like to do the
bands, but, but is there anyapproach I should avoid or a place
I shouldn't park? You know,you can ping somebody in Mountaineer
in Ireland or our club orwhoever, because most of the clubs
(53:33):
have some sort of onlinepresence and just ask, you know,
what's a good. What's an okayplace to. To. To start from or to.
To. To. To park so that I'mnot causing a problem. And, And I
think even that would, wouldmake a huge difference.
And you know, like, this isvery important because I remember
the conversation like somepeople don't like this approach and
(53:55):
they don't like, even, youknow, when I was saying, like, hey,
why if you want to access theland, why don't you ask a farmer?
And sometimes the answer islike, oh, because this is like a
sort of a form of control andI just want to have access and don't
want to ask anyone. But whatyou're saying, like, it is even like,
don't. Not so much asklandowner, but ask people who were
there before you. They cangive you some useful information,
(54:19):
maybe, maybe where to park ormaybe what not to do. So I think
this is very important thattalking to people who are aware of
what's going on, who arefamiliar with the area is always
good. Even if you're nottalking directly with a landowner,
you're talking to someone whowas there already and maybe they
talk with a landowner. I wantto talk. 1. Say one more thing for
(54:42):
listeners here who are, youknow, may find themselves hiking
or walking on the. On theland, on the farm, and it turns out
there's. It belongs tosomebody and there's a farmer. Like
what farmer told me. And whenI was talking, obviously it was in
the context of hunting and,you know, but also kind of like a,
(55:02):
you know, fishing and justbeing on the land and enjoying the
scenery. And he said, like,oh, well, you can go to the. To the
other mountain and there'slike my neighbor over there. But
what he told me really stuckwith me. And he said, like, when
you see him, just go to himand talk with him. And I said, of
course I will. And then heproceeded because what. What he don't
(55:25):
like and what. Most farmersdon't like that when they see somebody
on the land and those peoplesee them, they turn around and they
walk, they run. And that'slike, farmers apparently don't like
that. And I understand that.So if you're out there and you see
a farmer working a landowner,don't run from him. The opposite.
(55:47):
Go in and say, like, hello,how are you? You know, introduce
yourself, compliment his land.Like, do something. Don't be, you
know, this implied of like,oh, I'm doing something wrong and
just run. So this is just likemy thing that I absolutely.
And I mean, you know, when wemeet farmers, when we're out on group
(56:07):
hikes, you know, we'll make apoint of saying hello, thanking them
and introducing ourselves. As,you know, we're the club from Galway.
And I know part of that issubtly saying we're not some bunch
of invaders from Dublin orwherever, but it's more just to say,
you know, we. We're not thatfar away and, you know, we'd be responsible.
(56:28):
And yeah, I think that makes ahuge difference. I mean, common courtesy
is you are on somebody's landand, you know, at the very least,
you just go over and say helloand thanks. And is it okay? Because,
you know, that farmer didn'tset out that morning to have a confrontation
with people. And, you know,the better that you can make the
(56:48):
encounter, the probably thebetter it is for both people.
Yeah, exactly. And I, And Ialways, you know, like, again, from
the pers. From the. From theperspective of, you know, even if
you want to go on the land,you know, you're trying to fish there
on the. In the. In a lake orhunt deer or whatever else. Obviously
for hunting deer is adifferent story. You need to have
a. You need to have a.Permission. But even like this simple
(57:09):
thing like I'm. I'm an. I'minsured, right? I'm a member of a
club. Here's an insurance.He's like some sort of a. And at
some point that farmer mighteven like to have someone else who
he knows who they are, likeextra, you know, person who they
know are out there and can,you know, I don't want to say like,
(57:32):
you know, keep an eye onwhat's. What's happening, but at
least they know what. What itis. John, we're gonna be wrapping
this up before we do that.First of all, folks who watching
this and listening, if youlike the content like that, don't
forget to subscribe to mynewsletter. The link is in the description
of the show and also all therelevant links from John also gonna
(57:54):
be in the description of theshow. So get in there and do your
job. And before we wrap thisup, John, how do you see this situation
progressing or for thatmatter, regressing in the next 20
years? So seeing the changesfrom 20 years ago to now, how do
(58:15):
you envisage this situationwill develop 20 years from now?
Yeah, that's an interestingone. I think we're probably at a
point in the road that nowthat that volume has increased, I
mean, I think the state needsto have areas for people who don't
(58:35):
want to climb in Connemara,but want to go somewhere. And you
know, in. In. In the west ofIreland, we have. Well, there is
a national park, Connemaranational park, and Diamond Hill,
which is a relativelystraightforward hike, but it's hugely
popular because. Becausepeople will happily go to a place
that is supervised and wherethe access is. Okay. And I think
(58:57):
we probably need more ofthose. I think something will have
to be done to support farmersthat are in areas where you've got
these fantastic mountainranges. And there was a pilot scheme,
or there is a pilot schemewhich is extended to the McGillicuddy
(59:19):
reeks. And there was talk ofextending that to other areas. It's
a kind of a collaborativeapproach between the landowners and
the local council and someother stakeholders. And it was a
recognition that a lot ofpeople want to climb Carntuhel and
the mountains around it. Andhow do we manage that so that, you
know, everybody's landinterests are also respected. And
(59:40):
it seems to be working outreasonably well, as far as I can
see. And I'd really hopedthat. And there was talk in the last
government of it beingextended, but it didn't, it didn't
happen. It's still, I think,my understanding is that it's still
a pilot and there's just onescheme. And I think if a bit more
energy could be and moneycould be applied to piloting that
(01:00:04):
in a few other areas wherethere's just a lot of people now
starting to visit, I thinkthat would be useful. I remember
a discussion about this about20 years ago, and at the time, you
know, the. I think thegovernment position was we're not
going to pay for access. Youknow, we're just not going to go
(01:00:26):
there. And I think whateveryou call it, I think the landowners
who are bearing the brunt ofthis will need to be looked after
and compensated. And in returnthat. That provides some, some access.
But even that access will notbe uncontrolled access. You know,
as long as there's livestockon, on land, you know, there's going
(01:00:50):
to have to be restrictions ondogs. And so access, there's, there's
several levels to access.There's the access where people who
don't really want to thinkabout rules and regulations can go
to a park where they can lettheir dog run free. And definitely
we should have some of those.Every city should have some park
where you can just let yourdoggo bananas and where you can go
(01:01:13):
for a long walk without reallyimpinging on anybody. And then for
the more wilderness areas,there just need to be, I would say,
you know, some sort of schemesimilar to the one in Kerry and try
and roll that out to otherareas. Now, I'm assuming the one
in Kerry is reasonablysuccessful. You know, when you go
(01:01:37):
down to the Reeks and climbKaren Thule it seems to be. It seems
to be working. The paths arelaid out. I don't think there's a
land access issue. It seems tobe well regulated. So if we had something
similar in other areas, Ithink that would be super.
John, thank you so much. Ihope listeners learned a lot from
(01:01:58):
this. And yeah, folks, just berespectful towards the landowners
because that's really courtesyand that's really thanks for them.
John, thank you for your work.We're going to put all the links
in the description, sohopefully you'll get few volunteers
after this episode. Thank youso much.
Okay, thank you.
In episode 202, we spoke withPaulik Galbraith about his book where
he was talking about the landaccess and that was very specific
to the UK and UK realities.And after that episode was published,
a listener messaged me to talkabout Irish realities of land access.
(00:21):
And it quickly become thatJohn, who is our guest today on the
podcast, has quite a lot ofexperience in hiking and in issues
of land access and clearly hadall those things very well thought
out. And so today we are goingto talk about land access and issues
related to that from theperspective of Ireland. And obviously
(00:46):
this is Conservation andScience podcast where we take a deep
dive into topics of ecology,conservation and human wildlife interactions.
And I'm Tommy Serafinsky. Ialways strive to bring you diverse
perspectives on the topicsthat we cover. And today is one of
those diverse perspectives.John, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
(01:06):
I'm glad you responded to Ithink it was either post on social
media or one of the threadsand you responded with quite a few
posts telling us and everybodyyour your thoughts. And obviously
you have a huge experience inissues of land access and hiking
and so on. So maybe just a fewwords of introduction, what you do,
(01:28):
who you are, what you do andwhen you operate in Ireland.
Yeah. So my name is John Smithand I've been hiking for about 20
years. Actually, it's the 20thanniversary of joining the hiking
club in Galway, which I joinedwhen I moved to the city here. And
so I've been hiking for thelast 20 years, mainly in Connemara,
(01:51):
and since 2018, I've also beenpart of a group called Mountain Metal
Ireland, and I'm one of theorganizers of the west of Ireland
Branch. And what mountainmetalIreland do is repair upland trails.
And there's six differentgroups around the country. Some of
(02:13):
them work on Kilcherland, butin the west of Ireland, we work on
private land in cooperationwith the Rural Recreation officers.
And we've done some workbuilding styles on land in cooperation
with Mountaineering Irelandto, you know, where there's issues
(02:34):
where fences are being brokendown and things like that. So I've
seen it from the point of viewof a hiker who wants to go out in
the hills and hike, but alsoas part of a group where we see where
some of those tensions canarise with the volume of people accessing
the hills. And my background,I grew up on a farm, so I totally
(02:54):
understand the farming aspectas well. And I have to confess the
thought of a lot of peoplewalking over our family farm when
we had it wouldn't fill mewith much enthusiasm. So I'm particularly
sympathetic to the farmer'spoint of view.
And look, this is probablyevery time we talk about land access,
I'm saying I'm repeating thesame thing. So I need to repeat the
(03:17):
same thing now that I canequally make an argument for both
sides because, you know, fromthe perspective, like you said, from
perspective for the, you know,outdoors person, outdoorsman who
wants to access land and justrecreate, do whatever. And then also
from the perspective of thelandowner is like, hey, it's my property,
you know, so I. It is, it isvery interesting, let's say, topic
(03:39):
also, also for. For listenerswho are here for a long time and
those who are not for a longtime. When that podcast started probably
seven years ago, it was calledTommy's Outdoors, and the profile
was a little bit different.And I always wanted to do an episode
about hiking back then, and Ieven had one, but it was like, not
(04:01):
really in the Irish. So thisis like a sort of like all things
are coming together now I haveyou here and, and we're going to
be talking about hiking, butnot about hiking per se, but also
from the perspective of landaccess. Okay. So I would like you,
you know, first of all, youhave like a 20 years of experience
and you, I think you saw thetransformation, how the things change.
(04:24):
So over these two decades, youknow, you mentioned like, it was
like a small community ofexperienced hikers, walkers who were.
Who are doing their stuff. Andnow, you know, like, I think you
use the term boat, busloads ofhikers, which is very descriptive
and like, you can, you can doso. So paint us a picture. You or
(04:45):
what changed in Comnen MaraMountains over the last 20 years.
It's funny, when I wasthinking about the podcast this evening,
I had a memory of meetingsomebody I knew maybe 15 years ago
at a walking festival down inWalford or somewhere down there.
And she had moved from themidlands of the west up to Dublin.
(05:09):
And she would say, it's reallyhard to join club. They have waiting
lists. And I was, I wassurprised because in the west of
Ireland that wasn't an issue.And really what's happened is that
the, if you like those issuesthat were kind of already there in
the east, you know, theWicklow Mountains with just a huge
volume of people has nowarrived in the west. And, you know,
(05:33):
it kind of started when I, youknow, when I was hiking 15, 20 years
ago. You could, you could hikethrough the bends or the 12 bends
or the Mam Turk mountains onthe best of days and not see anybody
else. You'd be the only group.And occasionally you'd meet a tourist,
like a hiker who was used tomaybe alpine hiking or whatever,
(05:55):
and they'd rave about. Iremember meeting a French hiker in
the 12 bends years ago and hesaid, this is fantastic scenery,
but where is everybody? Like,I can't believe I have these mountains
to myself. And then I thinkthe start of the change in the west
really started with the wildAtlantic way. And from a tourist
(06:16):
point of view, that was reallysuccessful. It made a lot of places
that were there moreaccessible. It mapped them out and
people could create routes andstart to visit places, and that volume
sort of increased. Then ofcourse, you had the whole social
(06:36):
media, so you had people doingthese hikes and they put it on social
media and it would look superand, you know, they'd be raving about
it. And that attracted otherpeople. The hiking apps, of course,
moved from dedicated GPS unitsto phone apps, and you could share
(06:57):
those. So I mean, to give anexample, you can, you know, you can
download lots of routes forMuiri, which is, you know, at the
mouth of Killery Fjord. Now,that's a tricky mountain to hike
on. A lot of the approaches,one of them is not so bad. And when
you get to the top, like, ifconditions aren't really good, that
(07:17):
can be a tricky situation.They're in place. But you have people
downloading that and justwandering up on their own. And like,
that's not a mountain, really.You should hike on your own. But
our club will meet peopleregularly on their own up there.
They're not really togged outfor the weather to change suddenly.
(07:39):
And then, of course, Covid wasthe final thing, because a lot of
people discovered theoutdoors, which was great, but it
kind of went then from peoplewho were in hiking clubs, which is
really a small percentage ofthe country. I googled Mountaineering
Ireland's membership, and it'sless than 16,000. So it's a small
number of people, but you havetens of thousands of other people
(08:01):
now who will just checksomething online and decide, hey,
we should climb here or weshould walk here. And they may be
looking at a trail that theydownloaded from a seasoned hiker,
but there's no context on theaccess or where you're going to park
or whether really that accessis no longer available, or more importantly,
(08:24):
it's the time of the year whensheep are lambing and that's not
a good time to visit. Therewas an issue Just there, not so long
ago. Where? On Abbey Hill inthe burren with the other side of
Galway Bay. And it's a verypopular. It's a very popular walk.
There's a boring there. It'snot a very strenuous hike. But somebody
(08:45):
led a night walk there duringthe. I think it was the calving season.
And the farmer was like, Idon't mind people hiking, but that's
the one time of the year youjust cannot have people wandering
up in the darkness becauseit'll scare the cattle. And, you
know, he was so he, you know,that message went out to the clubs,
but the clubs are only a smallnumber of the people who will, you
(09:07):
know, decide, oh, do you knowwhat? It'd be great fun to do a night
walk on Abbey Hill justbecause the sheer volume of people
who are doing outdoor stuff.
Now question that I have isthese mountains, when people are
walking, like, is this, like,fundamentally private property? Is
it belong. Does it belong tothe state? Like, what is the ownership
(09:31):
and how this is regulated formajority of it? Because one of the
comments that you made that,okay, the situation, the regulation
is a little bit different thancompared in the uk, where in the
UK it seems like a discussionrevolves into large estates. While.
And what was funny is thatPatrick's comment on the 202 episode
(09:56):
was that access in Ireland isrubbish. We don't have those large
estates and the access isrubbish. So I'm curious, like, what's
your take on this? Do youreally think that the access is rubbish
because we don't have thoseestates? And at the same time, you
know, how does it work thatall this hiking is going on on the
land, this private property, essentially?
(10:18):
Yeah, it's a good question.And I don't think. I don't think
access is rubbish, but it isbecoming worse. And it turns to your
original question. InConnemara, most of the land is privately
owned. Some of it is commonage. So the side of a mountain would
belong to 15 or 20 farmers andthey'd have grazing rights on it.
(10:42):
And then some of it is. Issingle. Single farmers. And really,
you know, the issue has been,of course, that for years, small
numbers of people were hikingon those mountains and it wasn't
an issue. The farmers reallydidn't care, didn't mind. They tolerated
(11:04):
it. And there's no upside fora farmer in Ireland, really, to allow
hiking on their land. There'sno benefit. The best that can happen
is very little damage will bedone. They're like, but, you know,
their fences get broken down.And I've even seen who I would consider
(11:25):
reasonably experienced people,you know, hopping over fences in
a way that as someone who'shad to put up fences when I was a
kid, I wouldn't be happy withthat, you know, straining the wire
and climbing gates at thewrong pier so that you're putting
a strain on it. Simple stuff.But really. And those are people
who are in hiking clubs. So Ican only imagine somebody who just
(11:46):
decided to go out for the day.You know, there's very little. They'd
have very little experience onwhat to do. But, but yeah, the land
is, the land is privatelyowned. I mean, in Britain they didn't
have a revolution. So those,those estates are, you know, they're,
they're centuries old and theyhave this tradition of, you know,
somebody owns a lot of land,there's tenant farmers on it. But,
(12:09):
and, and because it's verymuch a. An urban. I mean, most the
population live in urbanareas. That's only starting to happen
in Ireland. You know, mygeneration are probably the last
generation, maybe the onebehind it who really, where we were,
the majority were maybe fromthe countryside, are very small towns.
(12:32):
But as time goes on, Irelandwill become a more urban country
as well, where most people,you know, they don't have. Won't
have a direct link to farminganymore. So the access today, I mean,
what we would considertraditional routes on the quite scenic
mountains in Connemara,there's just far more people showing
(12:55):
up at them and most peopledrive and then you just end up with
either 20 or 30 cars along aroad that's just not fit for them.
And in our club we try andcarpool. So if there's going to be
a. A choke point, we mightmeet at recess or mam. Cross or somewhere
(13:16):
and park cars there and thentake just enough cars to get to where
we're going. But, you know,but there has also been cases of
literally busloads of peopleshowing up to do a hike. And what
really bugs the farmers, ofcourse, is where you have professional
guides leading walks. And Imean, I really, from the farmer's
(13:41):
point of view, there's nopermission. And there's a couple
of places I won't name thembecause I don't want to give away
the actual farmer's name,where there's always been really
good access. But of latethey're discovering that there are
groups showing up, they havepaid someone, so they have a sense
of entitlement because maybethey don't understand the background.
But that guide has not gotpermission from the landowner. And,
(14:04):
you know, from the farmer'spoint of view, he's going to be picking
up plastic bottles and, youknow, bits of stuff that's fallen
out of rucksacks and whatever.And his fences are not designed to
be crossed by walkers. Like,they're designed to keep sheep in
place.
So.
The conflict and the potentialfor conflict is, I would say, growing.
(14:28):
So where we. Slowly butsurely, I think the access is becoming
an issue. And it's reallybecoming an issue because the goodwill
that landowners were showingis being used up with the volume
of people who are showing up.
How did that happen? Becauseyou mentioned those commercial guides
(14:50):
operating. Is that really acommercial guy, like a business,
or is it just opportunistic?The guy was up there, you know, 65
times, and now group of peoplewant to go. And he goes like, oh,
you know what? You pay me atenor and I'm going to. So I'm just
trying to. Or is it like, youknow, like, okay, there's a. Here's.
Here's the business. And arethey not aware or are they, like,
(15:13):
exploiting the goodwill of afarmer knowing good and well what
they're doing?
I. I don't know if I could bevery definitive, definitive about
it. I mean, you have outdoorspeople who, you know, who are professional
guides in the sense that theywill lead hikes on walking weekends,
(15:33):
which always do havepermission and, you know, the insurance
will be sorted out and allthat sort of thing. I don't really
know. I've never engaged withany of them. A friend of mine in
the club actually came acrossan advert for somebody who was offering.
And he knew the route and heknew for sure that route was already
(15:56):
a route where the farmer wasunhappy with the volume of traffic.
There was no way that that hadhad permission and. And, you know,
you'll get more people. Now,you see, it used to be that most
hikers were kind of from thegeneral catchment area, but, you
know, we have a pretty goodmotorway network now, so, you know,
you can get people coming froma much longer distance out to Connemara.
(16:17):
If you get on a bus, you know,you can. You can. You can travel
from. You can travel fromDublin, you can travel from a long
way away. So you don't really.You're just coming, using the facilities
and leaving. And. And then youmight not have the same duty of care.
And certainly if you're ahiker, I know myself. You know, when
(16:38):
you're in a hiking group, youkind of follow the leader and you
kind of expect that the leaderhas done the work and you don't ask
too many questions.
So no. And you know, likesomeone was upset, they saw that.
I could only imagine how upsetis the farmer who looks at it at
the adverts like, hey, this ismy land. Like, what are you doing?
Because, you know, like, Iguess it would be quite different
(16:58):
dynamic if that professionalguide goes to a farmer and said,
like, hey, this is what I wantto do. You know, I'm charging people
this now, you know, I'm goingto pay you, like, whatever for the
effort or for the, you know,as a courtesy. But yeah, this is,
(17:19):
this is terrible. And, andtell me so in, in general, like,
how is, you know, I'm justcurious, I'm just trying to explore
both sides of the story. Likeon one side the farmers are not happy
and they say, like youmentioned, like, oh, they're not
happy with the volume of thehikers. So what do they do? Like,
what's, you know, are there,can they close the trail? Can, can
(17:39):
they fence off? Can they, youknow, remove the people? And then
the, on the other hand, arethere people who are aware of that?
Like, hey, you know, becauseat some point they're aware that
they're on the land of thefarmer. Like, are they sort of understanding
while the farmer is not happyor they're trying to adopt or is
it like a, you know, like asense of entitlement through and
(18:02):
through?
Well, you see, the irony is ofcourse that the people who would
be more sensitive to thefarmer's needs are the regular hikers,
somebody who's joined a club.Like if you're in a Galway or west
of Ireland based hiking club,you generally have an idea of where
access is not a problem andwhere access might be a problem and
(18:25):
you try and avoid the placeswhere there might be a problem because
you don't want to annoy thefarmers. But they're a subset of
the people who can show up anyweekend and decide, hey, do you know
what, let's do the 12 bendstomorrow and they can drive down
from wherever parked car,hike, you know, I mean, the farmers
(18:45):
are not going to patrol themountains. That's not something they're
interested in. They might havean interaction with people. But to
be honest, you know, if it wasmy land, I would not want to spend
my days confronting people.You know, that's not something that
most farmers want to spend anytime at. They prefer to just go about
the business and farm and, andI, I mean, I even see it in somewhere
(19:09):
like Maumin, which is the masspath to a mountain pass in the mam.
Turks. And it's always been apopular walk and, and access there
is. Is. Is fine, but it's. Itis actually belongs to a farmer.
And there's a grotto up andit's a. Maybe it's a two or three
kilometer walk on a. On a. Ona pathway and. But there the volumes
(19:32):
have just gone completelycrazy because it's an easy walk to
do. And the only thing thelandowners ask is no dogs. And that
request is ignored pretty muchevery day. And, you know, and the
farmers could say, please, canyou leave the dog in the car? Or
whatever. And you know,because there's sheep everywhere.
(19:52):
And that's the one request.And it is, of course, the. It's the
people who are gonna drive outfrom Galway for the day and say,
hey, yeah, we could do mommy.And it's a nice hour. I will bring
the dog, get him out for anhour. And they'll walk past five
or six signs because there's alot of signs there. And it's just.
Yeah, it's just people, youknow, so. And you know, there'll
(20:14):
come a time when. And peoplehave been high, have been walking
that path because it joins twovalleys in Connemara. And the traditional.
It's called a masspath becauseif you lived in one parish but you
were born in the other, whenyou died, they carried the coffin
over the path and there's aflat rock on the top. So, you know,
for the rest of the coffin andsay a few prayers and, you know,
there's a grotto up there.This is a path that's steeped in,
(20:35):
you know, thousands of yearsof tradition. But, you know, it's
getting to the point where ifyou literally have so many people
showing up and, you know,disregarding the one request, at
some point, you know, it'sgoing to be very difficult for those
landowners to. To put up with that.
Like we said again in theprevious, most people are just specifically
(20:57):
want to get their dog out. Soif there's. If that's the reason
they there, they know they.They. They gonna ignore. They came
with a, you know, either theyknew and they. They gonna ignore
it. They were ready for that,or they already there with the dog.
That was the reason. Sothey're gonna ignore it. We're gonna.
I want to come back to thedogs in a second. But from your experience
(21:18):
and from your club experience,like, have you, as a club or as an
individual engaged withfarmers in Any way talk to them and
say like, hey, this is what'sgoing on, this is what we want to
do. And then I'm curious,like, what was the reaction and maybe
more general, what sort ofconversations did you or you as a
(21:40):
club ahead with the farmersabout this issue? Because surely
you discussed that.
Yeah, I mean, you know,Mountaineering Ireland do a lot of
work sort of where there'saccess issues that they try and get
involved in the try andmediate and, and try and find an
accommodation. And you know,and by and large farmers generally
(22:04):
do not object to if you likeproper hikers. But as I say, the
problem is that on the bestknown hills now, the volume of people
has gone way beyond whatMountaineering Ireland would represent.
So the challenge is that ingood faith our club could talk to
(22:25):
farmers about a particularroute that we've taken for years.
And in the past where therewas, where we would meet a farmer,
they'd usually ask, okay, whatclub are you with? And we said call
away walking club and that'dbe fine. But, but now with the volumes
of people, you know, you'vegot lots of people who aren't in
clubs and you know, they'rejust, they're just, they're just
(22:47):
out for the day. And that,that, that engagement, if you're
the farmer, it's like, well,who do I talk to? I can talk to Mountaineering
Ireland, but they're only onegroup. We have far more tourists
now because as I say, the,the, the, the Wild Atlantic Way is
really popular but, but peopleare coming from countries where access
(23:07):
is different and it's neverreally pointed out in, in any of
the tourist stuff. Oh, by theway, these mountains that are in
every tourist picture, youknow, you might, maybe you could
hold off from climbing thembecause why would you, you know,
if you, if you've come fromFrance or Switzerland and you think
wow, that, that's, that'ssomething I like climbing in the
(23:28):
Alps, I've climbed the 12bends. But you know, it's if, if,
if 10, 000 people do that,then you know, you just, you can't
get in or out of the place. SoI think, I think it's, I think it's
challenging for the landownersin the sense that who do they, who
do they negotiate with?Because it more and more you see
(23:50):
the, I mean, I don't want tosound exclusionary, but it is either
the more casual hikers orpeople who are maybe not as local
to the area and as sensitiveto it, but it is the volumes I would
say is. Is causing a hugeproblem because just you, just so
many people on trails thataren't really developed. I mean,
(24:12):
I was hiking in Snowdonia lastyear. I mean, you come to a style.
There's a style for the humansand the style for the dogs and the
trail is marked, you know, allthe way in really wild mountains
and there's agreement with thelandowners in terms of access. And
I mean, if you're from St.Joan, you came over to Ireland and
(24:34):
you assumed it was the same,you'd get a fright because it's absolutely
not the same.
So it's like implied that theaccess is agreed but isn't really.
It's been tolerated. Sort oflike in the unwritten, very.
Irish thing, we don't writestuff down and as a result it's,
(24:55):
you know, it kind of. Nobodyreally wants to grasp the nettle
of, well, how do we solve thisproblem? Because, you know, we have
to respect farmers ability togo about their business and it is
their land, but yet we don'twant to say actually we're only going
(25:17):
to have a chosen few who can,who can access the outdoors.
Is there a perception on thefarmer's side that they're just being
screwed over? So, for example,the likes of Wild Atlantic Way, this
is like a national nationwidecampaign, let's say an advertisement
(25:38):
and whatever turns out WhiteAtlantic Way. And at no point, and
actually now when you'resaying like, at no point I found
anywhere information of like,hey, by the way, you are accessing
private land and you walking,you know, it's just a courtesy of
a farmer who lets you. Becauseotherwise like. So is there that
(26:03):
perception on the farmer side?Because like, and then like, like
you mentioned, like, who am I,who am I going to talk to? There's
like no one point to talk toanyone. So do you see any, you know,
like, what is their, theirview on that? And do you see like
they're being more and moreannoyed and are they trying to do
(26:24):
anything about it?
Well, I mean, I, I don't wantto speak for farmers because I'm
really actually.
Yeah, yeah, of course. Butfrom your, you know, your, what.
You can gather, I, I mean, itkind of depends on the actual mountain
or area. Some areas aregetting really hit with just a lot
(26:47):
of traffic and I think forsome of those farmers, you know,
as I say, I'm not sure if, youknow, for farmers generally they're
represented by the Departmentof Agriculture and I don't know if
there's anyone in theDepartment of The environment or
(27:07):
the Department of Tourism,that is as voluble about. We need
to fix this because, you know,as the Department of Agriculture
would be for farmers, but forthe Department of Agriculture, it's.
Farming is, you know, it's forfood. And you know, actually if we
(27:29):
have to make a choice to justlet, let's just use the land for,
for farming and, and nevermind tourism and, and. And the other
stuff. And it's kind of agreat shame really, that, that, that
the people who should berepresenting farmers interests as
landowners and the widerthing, rather than just how much
(27:51):
food can they produce fromtheir holding. I, I think things
would be a lot better foreverybody if, you know, if the state
represented farmers in morethan just one narrow view, which
is agriculture, that it was asstrong for farmers on the environment
to say, okay, farmers have acontribution to make, but they also
(28:14):
need to be rewarded andacknowledgement acknowledged for
that contribution. And alsofrom the tourist point of view, the
Wide Atlantic Way is great forif you want a coffee shop or if you
own a hostel or a hotel, but,but if you're a sheep farmer in Connemara,
you know, now you can't getyour tractor past the camper van
(28:34):
or 100 camper vans or 200camper vans. So. So yes, I mean,
it's good for the localeconomy, but a lot of these people
are moving through and, youknow, other than where they're staying,
the benefit is not as, as, asimpactful for the landowners. And
the reality is people arecoming to look at the scenery. And
(28:55):
so, So I think, I think theway forward has to be that, that
there is a. There's a more.There's a wider view and a total
view of, of the contributionthat, that farmers have as landowners
and guardians of, Of. Of theland, of the landscape.
(29:17):
There's the most hated word,regulation, but, you know, like,
oh, you don't want reg. But atthe same time, if you're a farmer.
John, let's go back for asecond to dogs. For someone who listens
to that and say, oh, what arethe dogs gonna do? Like, what's the
problem with the dog? Can youlay it out? This is like a devil's
(29:38):
advocate question, really, butI just want to hear it from you.
Like, what are the mainproblems with the dogs?
I mean, I like dogs, but dogschase stuff. And, you know, every
year there are tales of, youknow, terrible tales of farmers finding
sheep, you know, savaged orworried or stressed or whatever,
(30:00):
and stressed sheep will abort.I mean, it's no fun finding that.
And similarly with cattle. Andthe thing about cattle, in some sense,
it's a bit more dangerous forthe dog owner because cattle will
turn in charge because that'stheir instinct. And I mean, during
COVID there was a tale inWicklow of a couple who'd lost their
(30:22):
dog, and it disappeared for afew days. And we chased a deer and
eventually found it. And, youknow, it was kind of a good news
story in the news, but thefarming organization was saying it
was a loose dog. Okay, it waschasing a deer, but it was chasing
the deer in sheep, you know.
What else was he chasing?
Yeah, you know, exactly. Hecame back two days later, so he was
(30:42):
hardly chasing a deer for two.So, you know, we really don't have
that. I see in the uk Justbecause I visited a bit, and having
been in Snowdonia a couple oftimes not so long ago, I was impressed
(31:03):
how they had. There wasfacilities for dogs that were dedicated.
If you're going to walk yourdog, walk them here. Here's the path,
and, you know, here's whereyou do it. And we don't really have
that at all here in Ireland.So, you know, people just show up
in, you know, somewhere andlet their dogs lose. I mean, it's
a bugbear of mine. I live inGalva City. You know, if I'm walking
(31:27):
down in south park or alongSilver Strand or wherever, people
happily watching their dogschasing the birds. And it's like,
yeah, but that's why no birdsnest here anymore. And whatever about
the city where. Okay, you canaccept that it's fairly busy. I mean,
you could. You can go out toConnemara and to some lovely beaches,
and there's a dog drivingevery single tern and oyster catcher
(31:50):
off its nest, and the owner'sjust going, hey, look, Shep, it's
having fun. You know, so it's.We don't really have a good. I don't
feel we really, as a country,have. Have good dog etiquette. And
when it comes to. Yeah, whenit comes to bringing them out on.
On land, I mean, you know,pretty much no farmer wants an animal,
(32:14):
even if it's on the lead on.On their land, because it just drives
the animals mad.
And especially, like, is.There's, like. And I don't think
this is, like, specific toIreland. I mean, like, everywhere.
Like, keep it. Keep your dogson the lead. And then people are
not keeping dogs on the lead.Oh. Because it's like, it's not gonna,
you know, harm. Like, I wantto just say two things here while
we. On the subject of the dogfor dogs for you, you obviously know
(32:36):
that, John, but for thebenefit of listeners and viewers,
number one, there are specialtraining places that can train your
dog to behave aroundlivestock. My friend runs one of
those training facilities andthey have like a regular dog training
thing, so it doesn't pull onthe lead and so on, but they have
(32:59):
like a specific specializedprogram to teach the dog behave around
the livestock. So that's onething. And that works like you give
it. You can drive with yourdog for a number of days or you can
leave the dog at the placewith him for a couple of weeks and
he does the training. Andthere's like a. More facilities like
(33:20):
that across the country. Sothat will help because that dog at
least knows what's up. Like,you know, like my friend says, like,
sheep looks funny, smellsfunny, and dog thinks it's a great
crack. So sort of do thatthing. And the other thing is people
who think that, oh, my dogwouldn't, wouldn't harm a fly. And
(33:43):
I know the story of, of, of a,of a person who had a dog who wouldn't,
wouldn't harm a fly. It waslike a, like a bigger dog and it
never harmed a fly. But thenhe found a sheep dead, killed by
his own dog on a farmer'sfield, and it was like, oh, shit.
Right. So obviously him beinga reasonable person, he went to the
(34:06):
farmer and, you know, squaredit away and that was the end of that
dog's freedom. So anyone whoknows anything about dogs and livestock
knows. So, like, folks, youknow, it's not true. Like, oh, my
dog wouldn't like, no, it'snot true. And sometimes, like you
said, sometimes the sheerpresence of a dog who just runs around
(34:27):
and wants to play that sheepdoesn't know that sheep gets stressed.
That's exactly it. Actually. Iwas up on Main. We were doing some
repair work on the trail acouple of years ago during the summer,
and I was very busy there, anda bunch of youngsters arrived up
in the car and one of them,she had one of these little kind
(34:49):
of toy dogs, a sausage thingof a yoke. And I thought, but again,
let it run free. I wasthinking, you know, you could just
carry that thing if you hadto, you know, but the signs are fairly
clear. And the second she putit down, this little thing that,
you know, once it was on theground, you could hardly see it over
the head, went straight forthe sheep and chased the sheep about
(35:09):
a kilometer in the End thefarmer actually had to come out and
collect the dog and brought itback. And I thought he was very restrained
actually, because I don'tthink I would have been as much.
And she was kind of. Well,he's never done that before and.
Well, he hadn't seen a sheepbefore, but the sheep didn't know.
It was basically an oversizedhamster. Like it was a dog and it
had a reaction and he drovethe sheep, you know, off down the
(35:30):
mountain. So you know, even ifyour dog is small for the sheep,
there's, there's millions ofyears of instinct which is I'm stressed
and I need to run away from,from that barking thing. And yeah,
it's not good.
Yeah, that farmer like, he'slike, yeah, he brought the dog back.
Well, yeah, lady is happy.She'd be happy that she got her dog
(35:53):
back because that dog couldjust like disappear.
Absolutely.
The farmer's shed. Listen,John, I just want to touch on another
aspect. Very importantliability question. And I, I think
this is not discussed nearlyoften enough and that is based on
(36:17):
what I know, sometimes asource of stress for farmers. I heard
about a story where there wasa, there was a boardwalk on the farmer's
land over the bog or somethingbuilt not by a farmer, but one of
those corporations withrecreational officer and so on. You
can, you can, you can talkabout this. This is sort of like
(36:39):
a three way partnerships lateron and, and lady had like a, you
know, shoes completely notsuitable for this sort of environment
and surface. And sure enoughshe twisted her ankle and she sued
a farmer. Right. Like to me itis outrageous. It is outrageous first
(37:01):
of all that the, that this,that the, this legal system in Ireland
is not such that would, youknow, kill that off right off the
bat because that lady shouldbe laughed out of the, whatever office
she, she went in. But it's areal thing. So can you lay down all
(37:21):
the issues related withliability and who can sue who and
like how does that work?
I mean Tommy, you, you, youask about what the legal system should
do. The legal system is itsfoundation, its funding is based
on, you know, people suingother people. And you know, every
(37:42):
time you see a court case thatmakes your blood boil. You know,
you got to remember, not onlydo the lawyers, that's what they've
been raised to do, but thejudge has come from that pool as
well. So it, you know, it's,you could run a whole podcast series
on, on, on liability in thiscountry and you, you definitely have
(38:03):
plenty of polarizing opinionson it. But if we take the land. I
mean, as I say, part of whatwe do in mountain metal is we build
some styles for farmers. Andthe first question is liability.
And in our case, they'reactually Mountaineering Ireland.
Cover it under theirinsurance, and we couldn't do anything
(38:25):
otherwise. And the farmerwouldn't. I mean, the farmer rightly
would not allow a style to beput on his land if he wasn't covered
under that insurance, becausethen he would be liable. And, you
know, there has been some.There's been some adjustments that
were made. I think in 2022,there was a case, 2017, where a woman
(38:50):
was walking on a path and shetripped and sued. I think it was.
I think Parks and Wildlifewere looking after them. And I think
maybe went to the circuitcourt first and she won her case.
But then on appeal to the HighCourt, it was overturned. But in
(39:11):
the intervening period, it wasprobably about a year. It felt like
a year at the time. I rememberwhen that case, the original case
went through, no trespassingsigns went up on every farm because
effectively there had been alaw introduced which was to reduce
the liability of landowners toprevent some of these cases where
(39:35):
really a landowner, somebodyhad come onto the land, caused an
injury, and then sued thefarmer's insurance or the landowner's
insurance. So in 2017, it wasthought, okay, we've dealt with that.
But then this case happened.Okay, it was overturned on appeal.
But in the meantime, for a lotof landowners, and I think the advice
(39:56):
from farming organizationswas, look, you need to protect yourself,
so at the very least, make itclear you're not welcome. And I think
that actually was the startof, you know, that. That whole skepticism
by landowners, which is. Evenwhen the government passed a law,
you know, a judge caninterpret it in a certain way. And
yes, it was appealed, but Idon't know about you, Tommy, but
(40:20):
if I had to go to the HighCourt to appeal something, I don't
have that sort of money lyingaround to do it, and.
Exactly. And the time and theheadache and.
The stress and the. Yeah,yeah, yeah. So the legal system is
not cheap and it's not fast,and that's a problem everywhere,
but it is a problem for landaccess. So coming back to. So if
(40:42):
you're in a hiking club andyou're a member of Mountaineering
Ireland, there is an insurancepolicy. In fact, it's about half
the fee, and that provides aliability insurance, so that when
you're hiking, there is cover.And the idea is that the farmer is
not liable. And as I say, In,I think, 2022, the law was updated
(41:10):
to go into more detail on theliability. And it really pushes the
responsibility to the personwho's come onto the land, and particularly
where you've come onto theland without the express permission
of the farmer. And theexpectation is, you know, if you're
hill walking, it's an activitywith a certain level of risk and
(41:31):
you have to accept theconsequences yourself. Now, I don't
think there's been anychallenges to that law, but you never
know. And you don't want to bethe farmer who gets a summons and
goes, hang on, I thought wewere protected from this. And then
who do you go to? So the landthing, we have a legal system in
(41:53):
this country that is. I don'tknow if it's worse than other countries,
but it feels like very littlecan happen without somebody having
to pay for it. The concept ofsomething being accidental, it seems
to be a strange concept. Herein Galway, they put down a cobblestone
(42:17):
street not so long ago, andthen they had to pull it up because
people were apparentlytripping on it the whole time and
suing the council. So now it'sjust tarmac. And I was thinking you
can go across Europe and walkcobblestone streets that have survived
wars and apocalypses andapparently the citizenship can get.
Can get over them just fine.But we have a liability situation
(42:38):
in our rather illegalsituation in Ireland where, you know,
where. Where a lot of lawsuitshappen. And, you know, just the.
A lot of the time insurancecompanies, you know, they're, you
know, if you run the businessand get sued, they say, we'll just
settle. It's cheaper thangoing to court. So. So a lot of that
happens. So the currentsituation is that I think since 22,
(43:02):
the duty of care is much moreon the walker or the, the intruder
or the, the person who is onthe land rather than the landowner.
But I don't know if it's beentested in court yet, so who knows?
Do you. Have you seen morelike trespassing, do not trespass,
you know, signs up since the,you know, when you started. Is it.
(43:25):
Is that. Is that the thingthat there is more and more of these,
like you said, farmers makingpeople aware that they're not welcome,
even. Even just. Just to be onthe safe side?
Yeah, I mean, well, Certainlyafter that 2017 case, a load of signs
went up. I mean, and all thosesigns are still there. I say compared
to 20 years ago, there's a lotmore signs, and I'm not surprised.
(43:49):
I know the farmingorganizations have, you know, you
can get signs which say thisis a working farm, you know, that
access is, you know, should beby express permission, all that sort
of thing. So. And it's kind ofa standard statement and you'll see
that on a lot of gates. And Ithink probably the farming organizations
(44:10):
have driven that. Butcertainly after that original court
case where the original onewhere the law didn't protect the
landowner, those signs went.
Up everywhere then gee, yeah,I would do that too if I were a landowner.
I would. Probably thegrumpiest landowner ever, to be honest.
(44:32):
That's what I'm saying. Canequally see, see both sides. John,
listen, let's switch the gearsa little bit and, and talk about
something more positive, not,not just to be like a. So negative
about it. Hiking at the end.It's a, it's a, it's a lovely way
to spend time. It's outdoors,it's on the fresh air. Tell me about
this three way partnershipbetween the club and the Mountaineering
(44:55):
Ireland and Rural RecreationOfficers. Like one of the early episodes
with like a rural recreationofficer, I thought this is the coolest
job title ever, recreationalofficer. So tell us a little bit
on these, on theseinitiatives. How do they work and
what's the goal?
There's a small group, I thinkthere's probably less than 100 of
us and we're always lookingfor volunteers. So anyone who comes
(45:18):
across as you could, it's veryeasy to join.
Yeah, we're gonna put thelinks in the description of the show,
by the way.
Super, super. So we'reaffiliated with Mountaineering Ireland
and actually their insurancepolicy covers us for the work we
do as well. But the ruralrecreation officers, every county
(45:40):
has one and they'reresponsible for all the way marked
trails in the counties. Nowactually I do think it is a cool
job and the people we'veworked with in Galway and Clare are
really good. They're veryenthusiastic and what they do is
of course they arrange thework. So in Clare, so you've got
(46:02):
these burren walks and a trailthat we have done a lot of work on
over the years is theBallyvaughan to Fynor Trail. And
that is a beautiful trail. Ifyou want to hike somewhere in the
burren on land on a trail thatyou have permission to hike on, you're
overlooking Galway Bay, youcan see all sorts of wildlife. We've
(46:23):
seen like peregrine falconsthere because they're breeding up
in the hill. And so the ruralrecreation officer will, will work
with the farmers, because thattrail runs through farmland. And
then they will work with us toarrange the plan of work. So. So
we've been fixing floodedspots on the. On the trail. We've
(46:48):
helped one of the farmers, whoactually is a stonemason, to repair
some of his styles. So he waskind of teaching us how to. How to
do the work, which is great.And obviously it's good to meet one
of the landowners as well. Andthen in. In Connemara, where there
has been some issues withfences being broken down by walkers,
we've put in styles. And so.So the. The RROs now actually. Sorry,
(47:15):
the styles. I need to becareful. The RROs are responsible
for the Waymark trails, butactually some of the styles we've
put in are not on Waymarktrails. We actually don't advertise
where they are. They're partof long hikes that if you. If you're
hiking through Connemara andyou're a more dedicated hiker, there
are certain points where youneed to cross fences. And we put
(47:36):
in styles to stop the fencesbeing broken down, but it doesn't
imply a right of way, which iswhere we have to be very careful.
And the farmer's anxious that,look, don't put this on Instagram,
don't put this in things. Sowe don't advertise where they are
because there's no implied.You still need permission from the
farmer to. To hike in those.To hike in those areas. But it's.
(47:56):
We do know that, or the farmerknows. Look, you know, a thousand
people a year will. Will hiketo this mountain ridge, and if they're
going over the fence, it'sbetter to go over a stile. So we've.
We've built those styles withtheir help. So the RROs. Sorry, that's
the styles. The rros say inGalway, looks after the Western Way,
which is the long path thatruns through Connemara and all the
(48:22):
way up to Westport. And we'veput up a style there. That's an official
one. We replaced one and we'vebeen doing different, fixing flooded
patches and. And also the masspath on Maumin is part of the Western
way. So we've. We've beenbuilding, you know, cross drains.
It's on the side of amountain. So, you know, the thing
(48:44):
about mountains is the, the.It rains all the time and the rain
just has one ambition, is towash the entire path off the side
of the mountain. So. So we doa lot of water work in terms of drainage,
natural drainage. So we'reusing kind of the thing with the
mountain mel is we use naturaltechniques. So we're not. We're not.
(49:05):
We're using, you know, crossbars and water bars and cross drains,
using the stone that's there.So we use the local materials, not
using machinery or anythinglike that. So. So the ros kind of
organize the permission andthe access with the, with the farmers.
It's kind of an unsung. It'ssort of an unsung job. I didn't know
(49:29):
a lot about what they didbefore I got involved with mountain
mail, and they're really good.So along with Mountaineering Ireland,
they're often involved inaccess discussions. And what they're
trying to do is get moretrails that are waymarked so that
there is permission and theycan appear on maps and the farmer
(49:50):
is, is happy with the access.You know, so if, if it's the responsibility
of the ro, it's effectively,effectively an official trail. And
some of those run throughKielsha land. So. So a lot of. In
some counties, I wouldimagine, you know, the RO and Kielsha
do a lot of work togetherbecause the actual. All the trails
are, they're actually owned byKielsha, like in Dublin, the Dublin
(50:12):
mountains. All those trailsare, are Kielsha woods. And, and
we've actually done some workin a couple of those building boardwalks
and things like that, so.
Very interesting. John, tellus, for people who are interested
in hiking, they like to go outand they like to hike and maybe they,
they getting a little bit ofa, you know, like a surprise. Now,
(50:33):
listening to us, what would beyour, your advice? So I presume that
one advice would be, you know,join the club, join the, Join the
hiking club, join the walkingclub. But maybe it's, you know, for
some reason, maybe there's nowalking club around. Maybe they don't
know whether it's like walkingclub around. Like, what would you,
(50:54):
what would be your advice to,you know, just, just try to find
a farmer first and ask forpermission or, you know, do what
you do. Like what, how what?Like, you know, I'm fishing for some
words of wisdom for people whowants to be okay. But at the same
time, it is understandablethat maybe, you know, suggesting
(51:16):
that, oh, you're going to, youknow, locate and identify all the
landowners on the hike thatyou want to do.
Yeah.
And then contact them all andask for permission.
Like, maybe a bit stretch, nottoo bad. I think joining a club is,
is the key thing. And I mean,I know we've talked a little bit
talk quite a lot about thenegative aspects. I mean, it is still
possible to hike in Connemaraand, you know, it's as good a time
(51:40):
as any to say a big thank youto all the farmers who still permit
it and whose goodwill, youknow, we still rely on. So, you know,
it's not like the mountainsare closed, but for sure, if the,
if, if, if some of theirconcerns aren't addressed, it's going
to be harder for them to, to,to demonstrate the same level of
(52:02):
goodwill. But, but in termsof, if somebody wants to start hiking,
the best thing to do is join aclub. Because, because if it's a
responsible club and if it's amountain iron club, they generally
are fairly responsible. Youknow, the chances are those access
issues at least areidentified. So you'll know if there's
a certain path that really youshouldn't be on. The club will know
(52:24):
that. And I mean, in the westof Ireland, the club I'm in is Galway
City based, but there's acouple of clubs in Connemara where,
you know, the members includefarmers who own land. And you know,
so it's not like it is notlike it's a bunch of strangers showing
up. And I know in Galway, alot of the clubs, you know, the membership
(52:48):
kind of changes between clubs.So you might have people who started
in the Galway Walking Club andare now in the Ma' Am Turk Walking
Club or in the, some of theother ones. And you know, they, the
people there are, they'relocals. So, so it's, it's always
better to, I would say to, tojoin a club, particularly if you
(53:09):
don't really. If you haven'tbeen doing much hiking before. And
it's probably no harm even toreach out to a club. So if you're,
if you're based in Dublin, youthink, you know, I'd like to do the
bands, but, but is there anyapproach I should avoid or a place
I shouldn't park? You know,you can ping somebody in Mountaineer
in Ireland or our club orwhoever, because most of the clubs
(53:33):
have some sort of onlinepresence and just ask, you know,
what's a good. What's an okayplace to. To. To start from or to.
To. To. To park so that I'mnot causing a problem. And, And I
think even that would, wouldmake a huge difference.
And you know, like, this isvery important because I remember
the conversation like somepeople don't like this approach and
(53:55):
they don't like, even, youknow, when I was saying, like, hey,
why if you want to access theland, why don't you ask a farmer?
And sometimes the answer islike, oh, because this is like a
sort of a form of control andI just want to have access and don't
want to ask anyone. But whatyou're saying, like, it is even like,
don't. Not so much asklandowner, but ask people who were
there before you. They cangive you some useful information,
(54:19):
maybe, maybe where to park ormaybe what not to do. So I think
this is very important thattalking to people who are aware of
what's going on, who arefamiliar with the area is always
good. Even if you're nottalking directly with a landowner,
you're talking to someone whowas there already and maybe they
talk with a landowner. I wantto talk. 1. Say one more thing for
(54:42):
listeners here who are, youknow, may find themselves hiking
or walking on the. On theland, on the farm, and it turns out
there's. It belongs tosomebody and there's a farmer. Like
what farmer told me. And whenI was talking, obviously it was in
the context of hunting and,you know, but also kind of like a,
(55:02):
you know, fishing and justbeing on the land and enjoying the
scenery. And he said, like,oh, well, you can go to the. To the
other mountain and there'slike my neighbor over there. But
what he told me really stuckwith me. And he said, like, when
you see him, just go to himand talk with him. And I said, of
course I will. And then heproceeded because what. What he don't
(55:25):
like and what. Most farmersdon't like that when they see somebody
on the land and those peoplesee them, they turn around and they
walk, they run. And that'slike, farmers apparently don't like
that. And I understand that.So if you're out there and you see
a farmer working a landowner,don't run from him. The opposite.
(55:47):
Go in and say, like, hello,how are you? You know, introduce
yourself, compliment his land.Like, do something. Don't be, you
know, this implied of like,oh, I'm doing something wrong and
just run. So this is just likemy thing that I absolutely.
And I mean, you know, when wemeet farmers, when we're out on group
(56:07):
hikes, you know, we'll make apoint of saying hello, thanking them
and introducing ourselves. As,you know, we're the club from Galway.
And I know part of that issubtly saying we're not some bunch
of invaders from Dublin orwherever, but it's more just to say,
you know, we. We're not thatfar away and, you know, we'd be responsible.
(56:28):
And yeah, I think that makes ahuge difference. I mean, common courtesy
is you are on somebody's landand, you know, at the very least,
you just go over and say helloand thanks. And is it okay? Because,
you know, that farmer didn'tset out that morning to have a confrontation
with people. And, you know,the better that you can make the
(56:48):
encounter, the probably thebetter it is for both people.
Yeah, exactly. And I, And Ialways, you know, like, again, from
the pers. From the. From theperspective of, you know, even if
you want to go on the land,you know, you're trying to fish there
on the. In the. In a lake orhunt deer or whatever else. Obviously
for hunting deer is adifferent story. You need to have
a. You need to have a.Permission. But even like this simple
(57:09):
thing like I'm. I'm an. I'minsured, right? I'm a member of a
club. Here's an insurance.He's like some sort of a. And at
some point that farmer mighteven like to have someone else who
he knows who they are, likeextra, you know, person who they
know are out there and can,you know, I don't want to say like,
(57:32):
you know, keep an eye onwhat's. What's happening, but at
least they know what. What itis. John, we're gonna be wrapping
this up before we do that.First of all, folks who watching
this and listening, if youlike the content like that, don't
forget to subscribe to mynewsletter. The link is in the description
of the show and also all therelevant links from John also gonna
(57:54):
be in the description of theshow. So get in there and do your
job. And before we wrap thisup, John, how do you see this situation
progressing or for thatmatter, regressing in the next 20
years? So seeing the changesfrom 20 years ago to now, how do
(58:15):
you envisage this situationwill develop 20 years from now?
Yeah, that's an interestingone. I think we're probably at a
point in the road that nowthat that volume has increased, I
mean, I think the state needsto have areas for people who don't
(58:35):
want to climb in Connemara,but want to go somewhere. And you
know, in. In. In the west ofIreland, we have. Well, there is
a national park, Connemaranational park, and Diamond Hill,
which is a relativelystraightforward hike, but it's hugely
popular because. Becausepeople will happily go to a place
that is supervised and wherethe access is. Okay. And I think
(58:57):
we probably need more ofthose. I think something will have
to be done to support farmersthat are in areas where you've got
these fantastic mountainranges. And there was a pilot scheme,
or there is a pilot schemewhich is extended to the McGillicuddy
(59:19):
reeks. And there was talk ofextending that to other areas. It's
a kind of a collaborativeapproach between the landowners and
the local council and someother stakeholders. And it was a
recognition that a lot ofpeople want to climb Carntuhel and
the mountains around it. Andhow do we manage that so that, you
know, everybody's landinterests are also respected. And
(59:40):
it seems to be working outreasonably well, as far as I can
see. And I'd really hopedthat. And there was talk in the last
government of it beingextended, but it didn't, it didn't
happen. It's still, I think,my understanding is that it's still
a pilot and there's just onescheme. And I think if a bit more
energy could be and moneycould be applied to piloting that
(01:00:04):
in a few other areas wherethere's just a lot of people now
starting to visit, I thinkthat would be useful. I remember
a discussion about this about20 years ago, and at the time, you
know, the. I think thegovernment position was we're not
going to pay for access. Youknow, we're just not going to go
(01:00:26):
there. And I think whateveryou call it, I think the landowners
who are bearing the brunt ofthis will need to be looked after
and compensated. And in returnthat. That provides some, some access.
But even that access will notbe uncontrolled access. You know,
as long as there's livestockon, on land, you know, there's going
(01:00:50):
to have to be restrictions ondogs. And so access, there's, there's
several levels to access.There's the access where people who
don't really want to thinkabout rules and regulations can go
to a park where they can lettheir dog run free. And definitely
we should have some of those.Every city should have some park
where you can just let yourdoggo bananas and where you can go
(01:01:13):
for a long walk without reallyimpinging on anybody. And then for
the more wilderness areas,there just need to be, I would say,
you know, some sort of schemesimilar to the one in Kerry and try
and roll that out to otherareas. Now, I'm assuming the one
in Kerry is reasonablysuccessful. You know, when you go
(01:01:37):
down to the Reeks and climbKaren Thule it seems to be. It seems
to be working. The paths arelaid out. I don't think there's a
land access issue. It seems tobe well regulated. So if we had something
similar in other areas, Ithink that would be super.
John, thank you so much. Ihope listeners learned a lot from
(01:01:58):
this. And yeah, folks, just berespectful towards the landowners
because that's really courtesyand that's really thanks for them.
John, thank you for your work.We're going to put all the links
in the description, sohopefully you'll get few volunteers
after this episode. Thank youso much.
Okay, thank you.
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