A CAMPAIGN HAS been mounted over billionaire businessman John Magnier’s purchase of a farm in Co Tipperary, with dozens of people holding a demonstration last night to oppose his plans for the land.
Magnier purchased the farmland earlier this year and a planning application has been submitted by Melclon Unlimited Company seeking to demolish the farm’s courtyard and carry out associated works which campaigners fear will flatten the hedgerows.
According to planning documents, the company has told Tipperary County Council that the “roof has fallen in” for two of the three buildings. The remaining roof structure is in “very poor condition”, posing a danger as a result.
Notices placed on the gate at Parkville in relation with the application to demolish the yard say that it is on health and safety grounds
However, the move has caused controversy for several reasons, leading to a number of different local groups coming together yesterday evening to protest.
Some farmers from the wider area have been critical due to concerns over the buying of land by investment groups and largescale farming operations.
Several people also turned out to support local dairy farmer John Hurley who had been paying rent to use the land until it was put up for auction.
Additionally, Hedgerows Ireland – a non-governmental organisation formed in recent years to protest against their removal – has formed part of the opposition, as it has contended that works will flatten hedgerows thought to date back to the early 1800s.
It said this is bad for biodiversity and needs rethinking. The Clonmel Archaeological Society is another prong in the campaign due to the plans to remove the century-old stone farm courtyard and its buildings.
The planning application for the site said the buildings are derelict and note that the site is not a protected structure.
Daniel Long, a local farmer who spoke at yesterday’s meeting, told The Journal that farmers in the region have seen land become unaffordable due to the involvement of larger farming business.
He said this was having a “detrimental effect” on creating opportunities for smaller and often younger farmers to continue in the sector.
Long added that south Tipperary is a “prime example” of “excessive consolidation” – where larger landowners buy up additional parcels of land to operate as one business.
He said the presence of a handful of “billionaire buyers” was causing the price of land to shoot up – with the average asking price now reaching €40,000 an acre.
“There’s nothing illegal about what they’re doing, but it’s causing land to be unaffordable and far in excess of what any farmers can make in conventional farming.”
This was creating a “massive gap” for when older farmers exit the sector, Long added, with the land snapped up by investment firms and large landowners.
Alan Moore of Hedgerows Ireland helped to spark the campaign when he wrote a letter to local Tipperary newspaper The Nationalist appealing to Coolmore and Magnier to keep the Parkville farm as it is.
“Apart from providing a home to wildlife – with 95% of our biodiversity is in hedges and ditches – they also store massive amounts of carbon, they prevent flooding, they provide shelter shade and beauty to the landscape,” he wrote.
“We simply cannot afford to lose any more, and replanting new hedges somewhere else is not the answer as a new hedge will take 50 years to match the Parkville hedges which are over 200-years-old.”
As well being a horse owner with Coolmore Stud, Magnier has tillage farms in south Tipperary. However, given the larger size of his business, the older paddocks often need to be cleared to allow bigger machinery to gain access more easily.
Long added that the issue is “bigger than John Magnier” and said it wasn’t helped by the absence of data on land use.
He addressed the meeting on lobbying he and other farmers are undertaking to form a ‘land observatory’ which would create a data bank on land use across rural Ireland.
Coolmore Stud was contacted for comment on behalf of Magnier and did not respond in time for publication.
A decision is due from Tipperary County Council on the Parkville site by 12 November.
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