Landfill plan to meet with fierce protest

January 1994

A STORM of protest is set to blow up in east Wicklow over the Co Council’s new waste disposal strategy which includes plans to develop a new landfill in Glenealy.

Many local people in the area are seething over plans for a landfill development at Ballynagran on what they regard as a very historical site, taking in McMurrough’s Castle.

The statement this week from Gr councillor Nuala Ahern welcoming the general plans for waste disposal in the county will do nothing to appease the people of east Wicklow who are currently in the process of forming the Ballynagran Action Group.

Cllr Ahern said she was pleased to welcome the council’s initiative on waste as it included the general aims of the Green Party in relation to management, waste reduction, re-use and recycling. However, she carefully avoided a general welcome for the landfill site.

Protesters feel that the historical aspect of the site is barely being taken into consideration, if at all.

Diarmuid McMurrough was a King of Leinster and had a castle built near Ballynagran and is considered to have had many of the same leadership qualities as the renowend and legendary Charles Stewart Parnell.