History Ignored & Restored – How Tipperary Co. Co. Differs From Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Co. Co.

One Council Restores History While Another Erases It – The Loss of Thurles’s Famine Double Ditch.

The decision by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to spend approximately €660,000 plus VAT restoring a historic ha-ha wall in Marlay Park (latter a sunken landscape boundary that uses a hidden trench and a vertical retaining wall), has understandably generated debate.
The 197-metre structure, believed to date from the early nineteenth century, was designed to separate landscaped gardens from grazing animals without interrupting views across the estate. Much of its original locally sourced granite survived beneath vegetation, but the wall had fallen into disrepair.
Restoration required specialist conservation work, dismantling and rebuilding sections of dry-stone wall, repairing the ditch and incorporating drainage infrastructure. The original contract was valued at €625,398 excluding VAT, with the final estimate rising to €660,374 following delays, unsuitable ground material, severe weather and difficulties obtaining appropriate stone.

Local construction professionals and taxpayers are entitled to question whether that represents value for money. Public bodies must explain how costs are calculated, why projects exceed their initial budgets and whether procurement arrangements adequately protect the public purse.
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has already faced criticism over the €753,528 cost of works at an entrance to Deerpark in Mount Merrion. That project is frequently described as the construction of “14 steps”, although the council says it also included a wheelchair-accessible ramp, retaining walls, granite paving, seating, landscaping, pedestrian crossings, road resurfacing, drainage, traffic-signal equipment and other public-realm works.
The criticism of these costs is legitimate. Nevertheless, one important fact should not be forgotten: Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council recognised that an historic structure was worth preserving.

That approach stands in painful contrast to what happened in Thurles.

The Thurles Great Famine Double Ditch was regarded locally as a rare surviving famine-era landscape feature. Local historical accounts date its construction accurately to 1846 and associate it with relief work provided to men and boys during the Great Famine. Rather than representing the landscaped elegance of a wealthy Dublin estate, this Double Ditch recalled hunger, poverty and the desperate struggle of local families to survive.
It was not simply an old embankment. It was a physical connection with one of the darkest periods in Irish history.
For generations, the route was also described locally as a public walkway and Mass path. Campaigners argued that it formed part of the social history of Thurles and should have been incorporated into a protected heritage trail.

Despite repeated warnings, the entire section of the Double Ditch was cleared in March 2022 supported by local councillors, as part of works connected with as yet a non existent, only proposed Thurles inner relief road. Contemporary photographs and local reporting showed mature vegetation being removed and the historic landscape feature being levelled by machinery.

**Historic Thurles Double Ditch Eradicated in 2022.**
*Pic. G.Willoughby*.

Once such a structure is destroyed, it cannot truly be recreated. A replica might reproduce its approximate appearance, but it cannot restore the original stones, soil, boundaries and physical connection with the people who constructed it during the Great Famine.

This is the real loss suffered by Thurles.
Tipperary County Council regularly speaks about protecting heritage and connecting communities with their past. Yet the treatment of the Double Ditch demonstrates the gulf that can exist between heritage policies and decisions taken on the ground.
Roads and development are necessary, but heritage protection does not require a complete rejection of progress. It requires imagination, consultation and a willingness to examine alternative designs before destruction becomes inevitable.

The contrast between the two councils is striking.
In Dublin, hundreds of thousands of euro are being spent restoring an aristocratic landscape feature. In Thurles, a structure associated with ordinary people surviving the Great Famine was treated as totally expendable.
The Marlay Park bill deserves detailed scrutiny. So does every major publicly funded project. But the principle of conserving historic structures should be welcomed.

Led by the denials of elected councillors; mainly Mr Michaél Lowry (Non Party), Mr Sean Ryan (FF) and Mr Seamus Hanafin (FF), together with senior council officials, through wilful ignorance, self-deception, blind persistence and despite knowing better oversaw this reckless destruction. Thus the tragedy in Thurles is that the debate never reached the question of restoration costs.

The Double Ditch was not protected long enough for restoration to become an option.
Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council may reasonably be criticised for excessive costs. Tipperary County Council should be criticised for allowing irreplaceable local history to be destroyed.

One council appears willing to spend too much preserving history. The other did too little before all of that history was totally eradicated and lost forever.

Neither approach represents good stewardship of public money or public heritage, and the waste continues without the consent of the Irish taxpayer.