Man who has preserved a piece of local history fears for future of the region

SEOSAMH Ó Suilleabháin is a farmer from South Connemara who ‘has the land in his name’ but he firmly believes that he doesn’t own it.

A raft of environmental restrictions that have clicked into place over the past two decades has rendered his land ‘worthless and unsellable’.

He loves his native Connemara home and farm but is fearful for the future of the region believing that most of the ‘next generation’ will choose to live and work somewhere else.

Just a few weeks ago, Seosamh finished off a splendid piece of restoration work on a lime kiln that was built by his grandfather, Pateen Ó Suilleabháin back in the 1930s.

It represents the vibrancy and industry of a local village as his grandfather made a living from the sale of lime produced from the kiln near Cill Chiaráin.

With fertilisers scarce, layers of limestone turf were placed in the kiln to produce slabs of lime that could be crushed to reduce the acidity of the local soil.

“This land is in my name but I don’t own it anymore. I cannot sell it, I cannot build on it, I cannot reclaim it, I cannot drain it . . . all because of environmental restrictions,” he says.

A breeder of Connemara ponies, Seosamh feels aggrieved that this web of natura based restrictions now imposed on most of the land in Connemara will eventually lead to its demise as a place where people live.

Already he feels, that his own children and those of other families, will not stick around in a place where they cannot build a house or try to improve their lands.

“We just feel forgotten back here. All we’re getting is a few crumbs and there’s only so long you’ll survive on crumbs. The young people are going . . . and going fast.

“I want the politicians to open their eyes, both Government and Opposition. The poorer land and the poorer farmers are just not getting a fair share of the EU money,” Seosamh believes.

He fears that over the next 20 to 30 years, there could be ‘mass land abandonment’ in Connemara, and if that happens, the region will be denuded of people.

When he looks at the restored lime kiln, it represents a little sign of how people made a living in the area back through the ‘30s and ‘40s when fertiliser was scarce and money even scarcer.

“If there’s no living to be made in an area, people just won’t stay around. The schemes that they’ve brought in like GLAS have far too many conditions to work in places like this.

“We just feel forgotten and neglected back here. You see what’s happening with the air service to the islands – there’s just no respect for the people living out here,” says Seosamh.

For the moment, he’s delighted with how his lime kiln restoration project has worked out as it remembers times past and a different way of life.

“It’s a bit of local history preserved and that’s good but it’s the future I’m looking at and as things stand it’s not good for Connemara and the islands.

“This will be a sad place if there’s just a landscape left with no people living here. That’s my fear as I look ahead,” says Seosamh.