Jonathan Stearn explains why and describes the uphill struggle to get some rights to head off road
Rightly the welsh and english look north to see how things could and should be done. But sadly if we look west we see how much worse it could be
I think i saw a stat once that Strava cyclists in Ireland were faster than in England, wales and scotland. The article didn’t spot the obvious explanation. Almost no of off road cycling in the mix in Ireland
That's weird. When I started a post on this this one wasn't visible!
And Eire, it's Ireland unless we're going to converse in Irish.
I was a bit surprised to see Eire in the title.
it is really hard to get on beaches and things, campsites with beach access can be expensive and very busy. I am always reminded that we could have it much worse when I go to Ireland.
There are loads of places to mountain bike in Ireland. Now there are lots of official \ sanctioned places. Before that we just ignored "rules" and built trails in any "State" owned forest. Still do. I'm always surprised how compliant you guys (well the English ones) are with access rules and restrictions. Guess it's just a different mindset or maybe stricter policing \ enforcement.
And Eire, it's Ireland unless we're going to converse in Irish.
Not only is it misused it’s spelt wrong, it would be Éire.
Eire is a load or a burden.
If we going to carry on, if you use Éire, then Northern Ireland is redundant. Think of the relationships between Scotland, England and Great Britain.
Éire is the official name of the 26 counties as per Article 4 of the Irish constitution;
ARTICLE 4
The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland.
(26 counties being only shorthand to describe which element of the island is under this constitution).
I think many hikers and bikers are probably (wilfully) ignorant of the ownership of the land they hike or bike on, particularly in upland areas. Also a huge amount of it is owned by the state forestry service, Coillte, so even though biking is not technically allowed outside official mtb trails on Coillte land, it is pretty normalized.
I also think locals will not hesitate to climb a gate and cross a field etc...but if you're not from the area you might pause.
For example I've ridden the Old Coach Road mentioned in the article and never knew anything about a dispute.
Jesus, this is eye-opening - that Enniskerry trail is very local to me and I was totally unaware of the situation; and obviously I've been past Croagh Patrick, over to Moher etc. And absolutely, 100%, unsurprising to discover that the government as recently as last year voted to remove any protection or consideration of rights of way - the Greens are a bit of a shambles here to be frank, and the rest of the Dail seems entirely divorced from any consideration of the actual people who live in Ireland.
Very well-written piece if utterly enraging. Just a shame that being STW, all discussion has been reduced to "er, actually, I think you'll find you used the wrong name for the country AND spelled the name wrong".
I had no idea this was the case. How do countryside users in Ireland access the land, if this is the case?
Really good question!
I think i saw a stat once that Strava cyclists in Ireland were faster than in England, wales and scotland. The article didn’t spot the obvious explanation. Almost no of off road cycling in the mix in Ireland
mmm... not quite - there's masses around Dublin/ Wicklow, possibly about half of which are ebikes. But there's definitely more of a culture of road biking; I'd say Ireland is perhaps 10-15 years behind the UK in uptake or development of the sport.
Just a shame that being STW, all discussion has been reduced to "er, actually, I think you'll find you used the wrong name for the country AND spelled the name wrong".
You do realise it’s a chat forum where people chat. I’m not sure my comments prevented any big-hitters from weighing in but there obviously isn’t much interest in the matter given the low number of posts. Tbh I found it quite a dull article as well. A potentially interesting subject but not really done any favours by the article.
If you think my comments are my sole views on the RoW accessibility issues you’re mistaken but I do find it irritating though when journalists can’t act get the name of the country right; maybe you have a lower tolerance for sloppiness / the British cba’ed to learn anything about Ireland attitude.
With regards to RoW we cycle bits of the Kerry Way off road and some other trails, however most of the stuff near us is borderline uncyclable due to the nature of the ground underfoot and the fact that every 200 meters there’s a fence, I know there used to be a group in Tralee who were off piste fairly often though. In general cycling seems to be in a big slump now after the high of a few years back, at least down here, the local cycle shop owner said it’s been very quiet over the last couple of years, however there’s been quite a lot of e-cycling tourism and a lot is being pinned on a long awaited greenway.Walking access is fairly good too, we spent the last two weekends at walking festivals down here.
er... actually, this is the bike forum... 😆
...and we now have two threads running on this topic. From the other one, someone shared this link:
https://threerockbooks.com/gravel-cycling-in-ireland/, which is also thoroughly depressing. The semi-state owned companies in Ireland are an absolute shambles, it seems, Coillte being no difference - the consideration of the actual people who live in Ireland seemingly far far down the list of priorities for thenm.
But I was served an ad last week for the Gravel Race Series, which according to that link above is actually unable to run, due to the outright "ban" on gravel riding on Coillte forestry land. Interesting/ depressing in equal measure!
I went to Ireland last year to an outdoor recreation conference. I was really surprised by the row issue as I hadn’t realised. I did meet a lot of county recreation officers who seem better funded than our county row officers and their job is to negotiate and fund permissive access routes with landowners. I believe there are a lot of these permissive routes but as the article says, they are not a right. There is an issue with insurance of some sort and the row officers have to inspect and maintain said routes and indemnify the landowner. There are some examples of really positive solutions with really neat community support through volunteer inspection and maintenance and really good live web based information on status and condition of paths. It does seem nuts however that there is no definitive right. There seemed to be some issue around general cycling access to coillte land as well due to some legal dispute. It’s a very odd situation as tourism is obviously very valuable to the rural economy you can help thinking that it could be Scotland on steroids if only access was taken seriously.