Castles in the pasture | Farmtario

Ireland’s vivid green fields and mountain vistas are littered with monuments from our collective human past. Stone age burial tombs, iron age ringforts, early Christian monasteries, tower castles – all are remnants of a bygone age existing within a modern agricultural landscape. 

Significant as such monuments are, crops still have to be grown. Livestock still have to be raised. Balancing production and private ownership with the cultural and anthropological importance of such sites – let alone their value as modern tourist attractions – is a real challenge for farmers and conservationists alike. 

With only a fraction of sites under government jurisdiction, and given both liability concerns and the realities of modern agricultural business, the fate of Irish historical sites can vary wildly. 

Beaubec Monastery: a responsibility to protect, and reasonable access

For generations the McCullen family considered an old stone tower little more than the crumbling centerpiece of its pastures, a source of stories, and rumoured bad luck should its stones be disturbed. But a long-standing passion for history and the local landscape eventually led John McCullen, the current family patriarch, to start excavating the site. 

The McCullen family was already aware of other historically significant parts of the pasture, including the remains of structures dating between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. McCullen’s own excavation work, and a subsequent archeological dig supported by Ireland’s National Monument Service, revealed the grandeur of a 13th century Cistercian monastery, the crumbling tower being the only portion that remains standing of the larger medieval complex. 

In addition, large, very ancient circular depressions in the ground were uncovered. They indicated that, much like neighbouring historical sites in County Meath’s Boyne Valley, the McCullens’ pasture was also host to people during the neolithic era (roughly 10,000 to 4,500 years ago). 

The significance of the site is not lost on the family, but digging and preserving the excavated structures brought complications.

The actual dig site, says McCullen, is small enough to be of little consequence to the family’s cattle production. Indeed, fencing the site during excavation meant a trivial loss of pastoral acreage. Garnering reliable funding to ensure the site can be looked after in the longer term is the challenge, however. 

Government grants continue to play a role in such cases, says McCullen. Like Ontario, though, funding for conservation is not always consistent, particularly given the number and variety of monuments demanding Irish government dollars. 

Becoming a federally registered and managed site would bring consistent payments – which itself could become a revenue stream for the family – but the move can bring complications including a mandate to provide “reasonable public access” to the site. 

“Reasonable access doesn’t mean anyone can walk onto the property. It could just mean what we are doing here,” says McCullen, referencing the private tour he provided to the author and another Canadian journalist in March, 2022. 

“It could be requests, by appointment for journalists, academics. That sort of thing.”

Liability is also a concern for many farmers wishing to expand access to historical sites within their property. 

Grace McCullen, John’s daughter and active supporter of the family’s conservation efforts, adds the family plans to refill the excavation site with soil and concrete – in a manner that highlights the medieval and neolithic structures – once all archeological work has been completed. In doing so, the property can remain open to visitors, the remains again preserved, and the pasture again fully opened for the family’s cattle. 

Dunganstown Castle: The challenges of modern tech, and old structures

Many Irish landowners have little issue accepting tourist activity around monuments on their farms. For James and Anne Hill, farmers in County Wicklow, chatting with people stopping to see the castle ruins in their farmyard can even be an enjoyable experience. 

The Hill’s home property shares space with the remains of a fortified tower house – a common type of defensive structure from the 15th and 16th centuries – plus an addition constructed in later centuries. Built right into the farm’s modern yard structure, James Hill says visitors to Dunganstown Castle have been increasing in recent years due largely to the site’s presence on Google Maps. 

“Most people are good. We like talking to them…some walk right in as if they own the place,” he says, reflecting the McCullens’ stance on what might constitute reasonable access. Similarly, he says liability is a concern, though some coverage is inherent in most Irish farm insurance policies. 

The Hills both express interest in conserving the structure – because it constitutes part of their farmyard wall, if for no other reason – though doing so is not easy. In part because the castle is literally attached to working farm infrastructure, separating it for viewing and research could prove challenging. 

Ensuring the environment is safe for a stream of tourists is another consideration, particularly as the wear and weather of years caused a portion of the castle to collapse in 2021. 

Community heritage – liability, and changing demographics

The McCullen and Hill families’ openness to interested visitors is a common characteristic of Ireland’s agricultural community, though access to historical sites has become more difficult in recent decades. 

Neil Jackman, an archaeologist and operator of Abarta Heritage – a conservation, historical tourism and outreach company based in County Tipperary – works with landowners and the government to preserve and keep the monuments of Éire open for the wider community. The long-term goal, says Jackman, is to help more people connect with the Island’s past by finding their own meaning and values in such spaces. 

Historically significant sites in Ireland are classified as either a “monument” or a “national monument.” The former is an umbrella term for most sites, while the latter refers to locations under state stewardship – those deemed particularly special or at risk of destruction, for example. National monuments require landowners to maintain certain rights of way, though enforcement is not uniform. Accessibility to more general monuments is even more varied. 

Changing business demographics pose a major challenge, says Jackman. 

As farms consolidate into larger and larger businesses, and as land changes hands, the more intimate relationship between landowners and individual fields can be lost. Citing several examples, Jackman says it’s not uncommon for places that have traditionally been accessible to be suddenly closed-off once a new landowner arrives, or the existing landowners change their mind. 

“Access tends to be easier on multi-generational farms,” says Jackman, referencing a commonly held “We’ve always let people in to see it” mentality. 

“Others don’t want anyone on. They don’t want anything but the machinery. They don’t want the liabilities. They see it as that’s their land, their investment. They can be much harder to get around. It’s not like going knocking around on the landowner’s door and saying ‘do you mind if we go take a look?’ You have to ring head office.”

These actions are not without reason, however. Jackman adds the need to make every acre count is a reality, and in some ways understandable from a business point of view. Safety for those traversing a working farm can similarly be a legitimate concern. Still, the practice of removing or destroying anything considered unproductive is an increasing problem for heritage conservation. 

Liability concerns are also endemic, causing problems for both individual landowners and local authorities. It’s a problem that continues to get worse thanks to an increasing Americanization of what Jackman calls Ireland’s “insurance culture.” 

“It’s not just for farms, but even municipalities. The insurance culture here has become quite bad in recent years. If there’s an old tree, for example, they’ll just take it down because it might fall on someone in the next 50 years,” Jackman says. 

“Stuff like that can bleed into how people view heritage. It should make it easier to do the right thing, but when you’ve got local authorities doing the wrong thing – the Office of Public Works, for example, turning all of our rivers into culverts and drains – it’s not easy then to say to a small farmer ‘look you’ve got to look after that small patch of field’.”

All these issues are just additional reasons why Jackman believes emphasizing “community-focused” heritage is so important. Rather than advocating every monument be open to tourism or preserved as-is, Jackman and his colleagues work with landowners and local communities to find the best way of ensuring the site can add value to the community as a whole – whether than means safe restoration, designing educational programs for different age or cultural demographics, identifying funding opportunities, and so on. 

“My philosophy is, if we can get people to care about the site, then it’s less likely to fall into neglect, and neglect is the big killer. A farmer deciding to clear out a field, sure that happens, but more sites are lost to neglect and abandonment.

“We want to facilitate people building their own meaning, help people form their own meaning about these sites. If they find their own meaning, they will love it and cherish it.”