Solar farm plans 'threaten heritage sites'

Oenach Carmáin royal demesne shown with light blue striping. Red areas are proposed solar installations, purple the proposed battery storage facility, and black the existing Dunnstown power sub-station. Image: HCCG.

Important local heritage sites are threatened by a plan to install large solar farms across several locations in the Kilcullen-Two Mile House-Harristown area, according to a local community group, writes Brian Byrne. A planning application recently lodged by Delamain Solar Farms Limited proposes a total of 286 hectares (706 acres) of ground-mounted solar panels across five separate locations, ranging from Corbally-Brownstown just north of Kilcullen across eastwards to the historic Harristown Estate. 

This application comes on top of a contentious project to locate a battery energy storage facility in the area, currently in a Judicial Review process, as well as another solar farm near Swordlestown for which permission has been granted that has been appealed to An Bord Pleanala.

Many people living in the area, a quiet rural setting with a wealth of history and biodiversity, feel that the energy industry is being dumped on top of them with no concern for their communities, residents’ safety, or heritage and environment. They fear their area is being transformed into a 'semi-industrial, utility-grade power complex', with transformative effects on the land having consequences for local wildlife and biodiversity. “And we’re now at the point that, if we’re seen to be objecting to so-called ‘green’ energy projects, we’re accused of being NIMBYs, and subjected to personal abuse, including online, if we put our names out there,” one local resident told the Diary.

In a letter sent to councillors on the county’s Heritage Forum, and to Kildare’s Heritage Officer Bridget Loughlin, the Harristown Coughlanstown Community Group detail three key areas where this latest proposal clashes with Objectives of the County Heritage Plan.

A major issue is the proposal’s potential impact on the Plan’s objective to promote the process to World Heritage status of the Dun Ailinne royal site outside Kilcullen, currently on the Tentative List for application to UNESCO. Specifically, a documented ancient royal assembly area, Oenach Carmáin, taking in the parishes of Coughlanstown and Carnalway, is considered by eminent experts to be a part of the wider Dun Ailinne landscape. The community says that any development there on the scale of the Delamain Solar proposal could be detrimental to the UNESCO bid, which also includes the other main royal sites across Ireland.

Another objective is to survey railway structures along the former Tullow line, with a view to making it part of a railway heritage walking route across Kildare. The HCCG letter notes that the proposed solar farm would completely surround the old Harristown Station, one of the few surviving station houses on the line. If the solar farm development goes ahead, there would then be no access for a greenway or walking route on the former line, closed since the 1950s.

Harristown Station, James P O'Dea, courtesy NLI.

An objective to audit existing surveys of Kildare’s heritage, and conduct surveys of unrecorded Kildare heritage, will also be stymied in the area if the solar farms go ahead, the community group’s document says. At least 17 such sites in the area are already noted on the National Monument Service database, and others are known to exist through local lore.

Other heritage concerns include what the group believes will be ‘immense’ damage the solar farms would do to the earth and historical landscapes, the destruction of part of the boundary of the Pale which represented the practical limit of British direct rule in the late 1500s, and the likelihood that no opportunity will be available to archaeologically examine many ancient and medieval graveyards in the locality.

Communities across the area are feeling overwhelmed at the level of energy-related development being thrown at them, the HCCG say, including a rumoured third such application proposed for an area between Swordlestown South and Coughlanstown West. “We’re working hard to get people to send in submissions to this solar farm proposal, on whatever area of concern they have. But people around here are tired, suffering from information overload about the BESS and the Swordlestown solar farm, and it’s hard, to be honest.” That said, the HCCG are conducting door to door information visits and are anticipating a strong level of submissions to Kildare’s planners by the rapidly-approaching closing date of 29 June.

If all three solar farm proposals are eventually built, they would represent more than 1,300 acres of prime agricultural land being covered in solar panels.

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