Dear Editor,
I wish, through the pages of your widely read newspaper, to make some observations about the proposed Athleague Looped Walk currently before the Planning Office in Roscommon County Council.
An open day last June in Athleague Community Centre gave the public an opportunity to view what was being proposed, and to comment through a feedback questionnaire. I replied to the stated four questions as follows:
What do you think of the overall proposed walk route?
However well intentioned this looped walk may be from the point of view of physical recreation, tourism, well-being, etc., any altering of what was once Stonepark Farm, and later became individually owned fields, will inevitably affect the spirit of its landscape.
It was always a slow, quiet place. Those who farmed it followed the rhythms of the seasons. It was, and still is, the home of rabbits, hares, and our common field birds. Any opening up of the original Stonepark boreen to visitors beyond those who farm the fields will inevitably change its character.
How that affects the spirit of the place remains to be seen. One can only hope, in the words of the Joni Mitchell song, ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, that it’s not a case of ‘You don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone’!
What opportunities do you see for the Community Field area?
The Community Field could be a wonderful teaching facility, incorporating social/local history, archaeology, geography, geology, biodiversity studies, agricultural science, and folklore. It is vital that its archaeological heritage be left untouched for that very reason.
Although the Community Field lies within an RMP (Record of Monuments and Protected Structures) area, this is a poorly recognised and respected fact.
The field itself has so far escaped any major encroachment on its archaeological integrity – although some years ago, Roscommon County Council put a run-off water pipeline across it from the nearby An Gráig estate. This work narrowly missed destroying the row of double mounds that are clear evidence of an avenue of trees from the castle to the present church car park.
The Looped Walk proposal makes no mention of this archaeological feature. Will they be levelled in the interests of prettification?
Other neighbouring fields have not been so lucky, with machinery levelling what were probably ancient field boundaries, and filling in quarrying sites that are integral to the Stonepark.
It’s not at all clear from the archaeological report done on the area that any in-depth investigation was done on the Community Field or any other part of the RMP area.
What would encourage you to use the route regularly?
I know those fields intimately from childhood. I don’t need to be encouraged to walk them regularly.
Anyone who has experienced a summer walk beside the Stonepark’s blossom-laden hawthorn hedges, or heard a curlew calling as a winter’s night sets in, knows its landscape speaks to the heart.
It is painful to watch the cutting/flailing of field boundary hedges – a sure discouragement for wildlife and walkers. Will, for example, the old hawthorns, the most native of species, be retained on the ‘famine road’ under the proposed looped walk?
Overall, do you support the Athleague Looped Walk proposal?
I believe this project has been in the pipeline for a number of years. Unfortunately, it appears to have materialised out of a less-than-full local public consultation.
To the best of my knowledge, there was no town hall-style meeting called to air what was being proposed. Yes, there was a public open day to show the proposed plans… but the words ‘stable-door’, ‘horse’, and ‘bolted’ come to mind!
Having said that, I would support the proposal if I could be sure that the archaeological heritage of the Community Field, and the RMP area through which it is proposed to pass, would be further investigated and then preserved.
The archaeological investigation of the adjacent Circle of Life Park (originally the Fair Green) was very brief; no effort, it seems, was made to establish if the ‘famine road’ trackway continued on across the Circle Of Life Park. The archaeological report actually says that the possibility of this being the case “cannot be discounted”.
Yours sincerely,
Jim Waldron
