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InvestigatesCoastal ErosionA SMALL CO KERRY community group which saved its main road from being lost to the sea has urged the State to speed up decarbonisation.
Maharees Conservation Association (MCA) has warned that unless the government prioritises efforts to switch to a low carbon economy in line with climate action targets, vulnerable coastal areas are in danger of being wiped out.
“We can shift the chairs around as much as we want, we can have awareness days, but unless the State is investing in helping people to switch to non-fossil fuel powered cars and homes we are in big trouble,” Martha Farrell, MCA co-director, said.
“With a metre sea level rise locked in and the UN saying we’re headed for three degrees of warming, that metre isn’t going to stay a metre.
“Unless we have a transition to a low carbon economy… places like Maharees and Portrane have no hope.”
The group’s warning comes just days after The Journal Investigates revealed how an internal government report states the number of homes under threat from coastal erosion has risen by 173% in just five years.
The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications document also stated that the number of roads currently under threat from being lost to the sea has more than doubled between 2017 and 2022.
Set up seven years ago by a small group of locals, MCA has been able to turn the tide on escalating erosion in the area by implementing nature-based solutions and encouraging regenerative tourism.
Between 2015 and 2016, the Dingle-Peninsula community saw its main coastal road blocked 17 times by drifting sand, escalating fears the road would soon be completely lost to the sea.
With the help of University of Galway dune scientist Eugene Farrell, volunteers planted marram grass and installed hundreds of metres of chestnut fencing to protect sand dunes.
Alongside other measures, such as restricting parking and access to sand dunes, the group’s efforts have slowed down shoreline erosion and led to the regeneration of critical natural defences.
“I would say that our road would definitely be gone at this stage if we didn’t stop what was happening,” Aidan O’Connor, MCA co-director, told The Journal Investigates.
“There’s some parts of the dunes that have grown 15 feet or more in the last six or seven years.”
Although the group’s intervention has slowed down erosion, it can’t stop it.
State support is needed to sustain such community-led climate action, the group said, and the decarbonisation of the country is vital.
“What we’re doing is keeping the community in as good a quality of life as we can, for as long as we can,” Farrell said.
We still have erosion, so any big storms, it will still take it out.
“It’s just we’re not seeing the devastation caused by the combined impacts of erosion and anthropogenic damage, which would be the people walking up and down the dune, weakening it. So we’ve taken that out of it.”
Leaving the dunes to their “own devices” in the summertime by erecting protective fences means that when winter arrives, erosion still happens but the area eventually recovers, Farrell said.
“The difference is night and day,” the MCA co-director explained.
“The sand dunes are really recovered, vegetated and stronger. You have a visiting community that really is supportive of us, because they understand now, but they probably didn’t at the start.
“We were fencing off areas of the dunes that were freely open to the public for years and they had that history of parking on a sand dune and enjoying it. Suddenly, that was taken away from them.”
Despite some feeling the group’s efforts were inconvenient and “futile”, within just one year the area visibly started to recover.
“We had a drone shot of the recovery, and you couldn’t argue with it,” said Farrell. “And I think that won us a lot of supporters.”
The group’s work has been held up as an example of how communities can work together to tackle climate change and its devastating local impact.
However, MCA says more government funding is needed to support this vital work.
Earlier this year, the group launched Neart na Machairí, a creative climate action project aimed at promoting coastal resilience.
Funded by Creative Ireland, the project is a partnership between MCA, the Dingle Hub and three embedded artists, Emer Fallon, Silke Michels and Zoe Uí Fhaoláin Green.
Through art, the project explores questions of long-range climate change adaptation, challenges, opportunities and how the community can ultimately become resilient.
“It’s difficult because it relies on volunteerism,” Zoe Rush, Neart na Machairí project designer, said.
“I think this is a huge thing that the State could be looking into and really trusting communities to be able to lead community action and climate action.”
Farrell said the innovative project has furthered the efforts of MCA by engaging the community in creative activities and fostering a deeper appreciation for the local environment.
“At the end of the day, all we have is each other as a community, and the project has brought us together,” she said.
Our investigation revealed that the number of homes at risk of falling into sea has jumped by 173% in five years. Read this now >>
Reporter: Patricia Devlin • Editor: Maria Delaney • Social Media: Sadbh Cox
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Ireland’s foreign policy is to import the entire world.
@common sense: 2050 were easily a minority. Lefties will come at you for saying this, calling you all sort of names, but they will never say you’re wrong. Look at the trajectory of the decline of the share in population of ethnic Irish. Down and down and down year on year.
@Cole Palmer: I say you’re wrong. So I call on you to back up your prediction of being outnumbered by 2050 – what exactly is your starting point? what are your assumptions about the future? Highlight the variables? Any risks to your forecast that you might want to highlight. I look forward to your response
@Cole Palmer: You’re wrong!
@Kevin Kerr:” Irish could be minority ethnic group here by 2050 – professor
Ireland’s native population could be in a minority by the middle of this century”
That was an Irish Times headline in 2006, when the % of immigrants in Ireland was a lot lower. Now, I fully expect you to spin that into some shixx that sounds good in your own head, seeing as you’re a fan of young male migrants.
@Finian McG: ah yes, a prediction based on unpublished UK research which states that people of Chinese origin will be the largest group. Nearly 20 years later, let me know how this prediction is going
@Kevin Kerr: did you miss the ’2050′ bit you thick eejit?
@Finian McG: no, dopey, my point is that, 20 years into this 44 year prediction, how has the mix changed? Are ethnic Irish on track to become a minority by 2050? No they’re not. There are 60,000 Chinese nationals living in Ireland – 87% of our population is either Irish (77%) or other white (10%)
@Kevin Kerr: we could have 400000 Ukrainians next year
@Kevin Kerr: I never said white, I said ethnic Irish. Our share of the population is dropping year on year. Check the consensus over the past 2 decades. It is a FACT that immigrants of East Asia and Africa breathe at a far higher rate than we do. Are you going to deny this now? The majority of our immigrants are from East Asia and Africa. Therefore if immigration continues the way it is, we will be a minority by the absolute maximum 2050. As soon as you lefties give up on debating this non-debate, you will say ‘so what ?’. I’ve seen it over and over. If you don’t see that as a problem, then I don’t know what to tell you, I give up. You will then go and contradict yourself saying Palestinians should have a right to there own land, which they certainly should.
@Kevin Kerr: ‘How has it changed?’ Are you being serious? According to CSO.ie, 150,000 immigrants came in 2024. That is 3% of the population. I said if immigration continues the way it does, so 150,000 a year until 2050 is 26 x 150,000, which equals 3,900,000. We are not reaching the 2.1 birthdate needed to PRESERVE our population size. So our share of the population will actually decline from 3.85 million. So 3,900,000 immigrants (not including children they have) is higher than our 77% share which will, according to our birthdate, decline from 3,850,000. Just like Japan, who’s Japanese population continues to drop every year from a lower than 2.1 birthrate per woman. Since 2008, Japans population has being decreasing every year. Can’t wait for your reply.
@Cole Palmer: Plus, we had 50,000 immigrants year ending April 2004, we had 89,000 year ending April 2022, we had 141,000 year ending April 2023, 150,000 year ending April 2024. I wonder what the figures will be in April of 2025? I would bet my house that’s its higher than 150,000. In 5 years I would bet my house it will be higher than 200,000…….
@Cole Palmer: so you have picked the year with the record number of immigrants to Ireland and assumed that this will continue until 2050. And of course, you haven’t factored in emigration to give an accurate net migration number. And of course, the emigration and immigration numbers are a mix of ethnic Irish people, and those who are not. So, in summary, your analysis is so full of holes that it makes no sense
@Cole Palmer: and yes, of course I accept that the proportion of “indigenous Irish” has dropped. It is the rate of future drop that I dispute. Sure, even in the UK, where people have been emigrating to since the 1950’s, “white British” make up 76% of the England and Wales population. You’re deluded
@Kevin Kerr: I chose 2024, because it is literally the year we’re in. I didn’t ‘choose the year with highest immigration level’. April, 2025 is on track to be even higher. 10s of thousands of Palestinians will be coming here very soon after they’re forced to evacuate from the atrocity Israel is committing. They know that Irish will mostly accept them because we go around waving their flag. They will want to coke here and nobody will stop them, as they have ‘the right to seek international protection’ anywhere. Palestinians though have a history of being very dangerous wherever they go. They launched a coup on Jordan’s monarchy, they attacked the Lebanon Christian front after Lebanon gave them refuge in 1948, effectively taking over Lebanon which was once majority Christian. Now 70% Muslim.
@Cole Palmer: it was majority Christian in 1975
@Cole Palmer: generally speaking, net inward migration will reflect economic activity, not asylum seeker numbers. So if our economy is booming, workers will come – if it isn’t, they won’t. So to assume that this 150k number will not only be maintained, but will increase over the next 26 years makes no sense. You clearly have no idea how population demographics work
We are tiny open country dependent on foreign investment. By all means work away in the background but we should not be taking unilateral decisions that will damage our economy. Ask yourself, how much extra tax are you willing to pay so we can take a stand over some conflict that has been going on for decades and will continue regardless of Irelands position on the matter. We are full of our own self importance.
@The next small thing: We even have pro Hamas politicians going up for election.
@thomas molloy: lads we need brits again to help us with that’s iner issues…
@A W: Say what?
@thomas molloy: No no we don’t. Why spread lies?
@Ger Whelan: Yes we do.
@Alex: which politician running has been “pro hamas”. I’ve never seen hamas mentioned by any of them in their election manifestos.
When it comes to global matters Ireland is as helpless as a plastic duck bobbing in an ocean .
@Jim Ryan: Ireland’s third-level education system is churning out graduates for US tech and pharma multinationals for years. At this stage we should be asking why Ireland doesn’t have it’s own thriving indigenous tech and pharma industries. It would make us a lot more independent and less prone to whoever happens in US politics. We need to invest in Innovation.
@Finian McG: *whatever happens*
@Jim Ryan: We seem to want to endlessly meddle but without any means of self defence. It’s an interesting approach.
@Finian McG: stay under stone buddies…
@Derick R M: lord help us with historical bs and no actions…
@Finian McG: All your blabbering is just a big lie. You never worked for any of those companies and it shows in your uneducated comments. Keep yourself on welfare.
When it comes to defending our own waters we seem to have to depend on the Bantry Fishermen.what is all this chest puffing Unifil troops in Leabanon.,its an utter joke.!!!!!
@Elizabeth Doyle: unifil makes EU news , protecting Irish waters won’t. We sold the sea to save the farmers
@Elizabeth Doyle: What did the Bantry fishermen do to defend our waters?
Bad opinion, vast majority of people couldn’t care less about foreign policy when it comes down to it. Highly unadvisable for a party to centre it’s campaign on Foreign Policy rather than issues people actually care about.
It’s pretty simple. We need a party which has an explicitly pro-West foreign policy. One which is strongly pro-Ukraine, pro-Israel, anti-China and anti-Iran. One which has the hunger to join NATO and one which supports abolishing neutrality and increasing military spending to 3% of our GDP. Unfortunately, every party in Ireland seems to be bone-headed on foreign policy. Either they are pro-Russia, pro-Hamas or both. Every party wants to suck up to China and every party seems to be obsessed with neutrality. What a joke! Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Fein and all the other small left-wing parties have terrible foreign policy positions.
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