Fencing in Kerry??

Tells

Anyone know why there's so much fencing in Kerry?

dogmatix

En-guarde!

Well maybe not that sort of fencing. It might have something to do with the long on-going debate over right-to-roam and rights of way and so on. There appears to be a growing problem ove r rigths access in that county. I'll bet if there is any info on it you might find it at http://www.keepirelandopen.org

Tells

Tells wrote: »

Anyone know why there's so much fencing in Kerry?

Not sure about fencing, but there are more cases involving land and rights of way in South Kerry and West Cork than other areas. I have seen a suggestion that this was because the land was so poor and overworked that large estate clearances took place in the late 1800s, there were incentives given to emigrate and the cleared land was redesignated amongst the remaining tenants. This was an attempt to make their holdings more viable, but on the other hand meant those holdings were more fragmented and scattered. So farmers fought very hard to preserve every square metre and the rights of way between them, maybe that led too to a proliferation of fences too.

NathanKingerlee

Most of our Kerry hills are commonage, owned collectively by several farmers. They used to share the open hillside between them for grazing cattle and sheep, but have now started to sub-divide the commonage into each farmer's fenced off section, possibly for farming grants or possibly for selling off lower down sites.