Are you still using turf?

15-07-2019 12:22pm

Saoirse Tasty Coat wrote: »

So what? Most of the county is not a tourist attraction and the only people who see it are the locals.

Oh no, no, no -- you see, we must give up our gardens, and ways of living that have benefitted us for probably thousands of years, and live in small, boxy apartments with almost no communal spaces or gardens (because that's how we build them in Ireland).

We have to do this to provide a view of unused land for the occasional city visitor. Apparently.

Ush1 · 15-07-2019 12:42pm

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Oh no, no, no -- you see, we must give up our gardens, and ways of living that have benefitted us for probably thousands of years, and live in small, boxy apartments with almost no communal spaces or gardens (because that's how we build them in Ireland).

We have to do this to provide a view of unused land for the occasional city visitor. Apparently.

- The Bull McCabe

Hamsterchops · 15-07-2019 12:48pm

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Are you still using turf?

fraid so, hands up, I'm a user.....
Sounds like an admission to taking drugs

Thelonious Monk · 15-07-2019 12:53pm

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Oh no, no, no -- you see, we must give up our gardens, and ways of living that have benefitted us for probably thousands of years, and live in small, boxy apartments with almost no communal spaces or gardens (because that's how we build them in Ireland).

We have to do this to provide a view of unused land for the occasional city visitor. Apparently.

I mean, I'm never going to live anywhere in Ireland but Dublin so I don't care that much, but surely you see that this way of living can't go on forever? If every family builds one offs everywhere, what kind of a mess will you end up in? There'll be no room for anything else, including farms!
And this way of living is not benefitting us at all.

knipex · 15-07-2019 12:59pm

Snow Garden wrote: »

Ever heard of Maria Bailey?

Ahh FFS. Is that the best you can come up with ??

What has cronyism or fraud got to do with a case of over "self entitlement" combined with a "someone else is always responsible" attitude ??

knipex · 15-07-2019 1:09pm

gctest50 wrote: »

Hardwood takes ages to grow, not enough trees for everyone

Also an awful waste if it's good, you can build decent stuff from it

Alot of Ash growing in farmyards and around houses in Ireland is useless for furniture, hurleys or pretty much anything else after being felled. It grows from suckers like a weed and has no consistent thread pattern and is full of knots.

There is a good bit of this around where I live and sections are typically cut back in rotation every 5 or 6 years. It grows back just as scraggly but once cut, split (and splitting can be hard work) and seasoned its great firewood.

I know the farmer and he sells me a bit every couple of years..

Lots of pine around, loads of thinning but surprisingly enough harder for someone like me to get. You can buy truck loads of logs or you can buy as much as you want already cut and split (most of which is still way too wet) but not easy to get a few logs to cut yourself.

15-07-2019 1:16pm

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I mean, I'm never going to live anywhere in Ireland but Dublin so I don't care that much, but surely you see that this way of living can't go on forever? If every family builds one offs everywhere, what kind of a mess will you end up in?

Why?

Every family doesn't build one-offs. Most of my brothers and sisters live outside the family farm. Only two have built houses on the farm, one of which is literally across the yard from the old house, anyway. This is the most sustainable way of living, I wish everyone could do it. My mother will never need a nursing home, because she will always have her children and grandchildren around. My nieces and nephews have never needed childcare, they don't know what a montessori is, and my sister has never had to deciude between having a career or staying at home with her kid for this reason.

This is all fairly normal where I live, where one-off housing is reasonably common. And since the population of rural Ireland is shrinking anyway, it stands to reason that the numbers of one-off housing are falling anyway.

One-off housing is a bit of a misnomer, because usually people build close to their family, as described in the above example.

I'm not seeing the issue. And I don't care if passers-by groan and say "what damage to the environment!" while completely ignoring the social and lifestyle benefits that accompany this way of life.

Thelonious Monk · 15-07-2019 1:28pm

https://irishplanningfutures.wordpress.com/ruralhousing/

Have a read of this. Obviously you one off lovers will never agree that it's terrible planning and unsustainable but that article lists all the problems associated with it. They're still building one offs all over so nothing is going to change, some of us just want a better planned country is all.

the_pen_turner · 15-07-2019 1:34pm

One thing I wish they would do is push people who are going to build a one of house on a green field site to buy one if the huge amount of old abandoned houses you see that are an eyesore and serve so purpose just dumped there.

Graces7 · 15-07-2019 2:39pm

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I mean, I'm never going to live anywhere in Ireland but Dublin so I don't care that much, but surely you see that this way of living can't go on forever? If every family builds one offs everywhere, what kind of a mess will you end up in? There'll be no room for anything else, including farms!
And this way of living is not benefitting us at all.

???

Graces7 · 15-07-2019 2:41pm

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I mean, I'm never going to live anywhere in Ireland but Dublin so I don't care that much, but surely you see that this way of living can't go on forever? If every family builds one offs everywhere, what kind of a mess will you end up in? There'll be no room for anything else, including farms!
And this way of living is not benefitting us at all.

hyperbole ! many huge areas cannot be built on. try the donegal/kerry mountains... mayo bogs and nature reserves...

Thelonious Monk · 15-07-2019 2:44pm

Graces7 wrote: »

hyperbole ! many huge areas cannot be built on. try the donegal/kerry mountains... mayo bogs and nature reserves...

Donegal is a big sprawled out mess

Thelonious Monk · 15-07-2019 2:45pm

Graces7 wrote: »

???

Us... you know, society? Citizens?

Graces7 · 15-07-2019 2:47pm

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Donegal is a big sprawled out mess

Odd that idea; I lived there a decade and that is not true.. Blue Stacks, Glencolumcille area, ...... ardara....malin head...and so on.

Graces7 · 15-07-2019 2:48pm

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Us... you know, society? Citizens?

well yeeeeeeeeeeeees.. of which there are many and varied!

Graces7 · 15-07-2019 2:52pm

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Why?

Every family doesn't build one-offs. Most of my brothers and sisters live outside the family farm. Only two have built houses on the farm, one of which is literally across the yard from the old house, anyway. This is the most sustainable way of living, I wish everyone could do it. My mother will never need a nursing home, because she will always have her children and grandchildren around. My nieces and nephews have never needed childcare, they don't know what a montessori is, and my sister has never had to deciude between having a career or staying at home with her kid for this reason.

This is all fairly normal where I live, where one-off housing is reasonably common. And since the population of rural Ireland is shrinking anyway, it stands to reason that the numbers of one-off housing are falling anyway.

One-off housing is a bit of a misnomer, because usually people build close to their family, as described in the above example.

I'm not seeing the issue. And I don't care if passers-by groan and say "what damage to the environment!" while completely ignoring the social and lifestyle benefits that accompany this way of life.

The same old idea of let us preserve the past as it was. Or as they think it was.
Leave is as a sterile wasteland rather than the thriving and developing resource it is. a holiday resort not a living space

Graces7 · 15-07-2019 2:53pm

Hamsterchops wrote: »

fraid so, hands up, I'm a user.....
Sounds like an admission to taking drugs

Love this! lol...

Thelonious Monk · 15-07-2019 2:55pm

Ok I've changed my mind. Rural Ireland and our cities are prime examples and excellent planning that other countries should strive towards, and we should continue on as is. I'm going to sell my house and buy a mansion down the country and drive to work. Peace out.

Snow Garden · 15-07-2019 3:02pm

The fact is that people will really struggle to build new one off houses unless they have a local need.
I guess that will drive the prices of one of houses in the countryside up.

15-07-2019 3:21pm

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

This is all fairly normal where I live, where one-off housing is reasonably common. And since the population of rural Ireland is shrinking anyway, it stands to reason that the numbers of one-off housing are falling anyway.

Your argument falls down on the assumption you make - the population of rural Ireland has grown in every census I checked, back to 1996.
96 = 1.518 million
02 = 1.582
06 = 1.665
11 = 1.741
16 = 1.776
An extra Galway County over twenty years.

IK09 · 15-07-2019 3:33pm

We had a machine for cutting turf when we were younger. His name was John and he was a beast of a man.

cgcsb · 15-07-2019 4:01pm

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Rural living, with your own land, is actually part of our social culture -- at least in rural Ireland. We shouldn't apologise for that. We shouldn't be trying to emulate Berlin or Manhattan. We are still allowed to have our own values and our own way of organising ourselves.

Who's we?

cgcsb · 15-07-2019 4:06pm

Saoirse Tasty Coat wrote: »

What’s illegal? Burning turf of briquettes certainly aren’t so not sure what you are referring to. You really sound like a delightful character :rolleyes:.

Burning turf is illegal in Dublin.

cgcsb · 15-07-2019 4:08pm

gozunda wrote: »

Cities cant cope with housing people living there at present. How in the name of god could existing urban areas cope with even more people? In Ireland public transport is already at breaking point and infrastructure such as sewage disposal as discussed above is way beyond capacity.

The point is that in rural areas people may for most of these services themselves. We also need a viable rural population in order that people can continue to work and live in the countryside. schools need critical numbers to be viable. No idea where this idea that everyone needs to live in urban ghettos comes from tbh.

That's an argument for greater spending on urban infrastructure and housing. Our present government is ideologically opposed to affordable housing, that'll change.

15-07-2019 4:16pm

cgcsb wrote: »

Burning turf is illegal in Dublin.

No it isn’t.

15-07-2019 4:27pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Your argument falls down on the assumption you make - the population of rural Ireland has grown in every census I checked, back to 1996.
96 = 1.518 million
02 = 1.582
06 = 1.665
11 = 1.741
16 = 1.776
An extra Galway County over twenty years.

Do you have a link for that? I'd like to see how rural Ireland was defined.

15-07-2019 5:26pm

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Do you have a link for that? I'd like to see how rural Ireland was defined.

CSO Statbank: https://cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Statire/SelectVarVal/Define.asp?maintable=E2004&PLanguage=0
This is the most recent. For the definitions I would have to go digging.

15-07-2019 5:44pm

Deleted User wrote: »

CSO Statbank: https://cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Statire/SelectVarVal/Define.asp?maintable=E2004&PLanguage=0
This is the most recent. For the definitions I would have to go digging.

Yeah I looked at that, the biggest rise in rural population was in Co. Kildare. I'm not sure that new estates and one-off houses just outside the M50 should be included in definitions for rural Ireland.

Certainly, if we're talking about relative numbers, rural Ireland is shrinking. I don't think anyone doubts that. I'll keep looking to see if I can find anything on very small settlements outside of the Dublin Metropolitan Area.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 15-07-2019 5:59pm

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Yeah I looked at that, the biggest rise in rural population was in Co. Kildare. I'm not sure that new estates and one-off houses just outside the M50 should be included in definitions for rural Ireland.

Certainly, if we're talking about relative numbers, rural Ireland is shrinking. I don't think anyone doubts that. I'll keep looking to see if I can find anything on very small settlements outside of the Dublin Metropolitan Area.

You're right. It depends on where the 'rural' is. I'm very rural and many miles from a village, let alone a town, but the parish population has been growing steadily for the past ten years at least. There are of course offshore islands with a declining population and other parts of the country too.

Unfortunately we can't just pick the particular 'rural' that suits our arguments,

15-07-2019 6:02pm

Graysen Chubby Spice wrote: »

You're right. It depends on where the 'rural' is. I'm very rural and many miles from a village, let alone a town, but the parish population has been growing steadily for the past ten years at least. There are of course offshore islands with a declining population and other parts of the country too.

Unfortunately we can't just pick the particular 'rural' that suits our arguments,

Of course not.

But I don't think we should be comparing the Dublin metropolitan areas or the hinterlands of Cork city with isolated rural settlements where people build houses in the front field, and draw turf from their own bogs. It's a completely different demographic.

I've just been looking up population changes in my own homeplace around Borrisokane and surrounding villages. They're either pretty much constant or falling.

Can't find anything on settlements smaller than 50 people ker sq km, but those are visibly shrinking in my experience.

Are you still using turf?

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