Abbey gift can’t silence alarm bells in Howth

THE Gaisford-St Lawrence family of Howth Castle in Dublin have just presented the medieval bells of adjoining St Mary’s Abbey Church to the National Museum.

Let’s hope the good burghers of Howth see this gift as compensation for the headache they have endured since the family sold the magnificent castle and estate to Tetrarch, an Irish investment group, for an undisclosed sum.

Tetrarch has ambitious plans for the idyllic beauty spot, where locals have up to now had free rein to ramble and which became a popular attraction during the pandemic.

But while it might be one thing to turn the 530-acre site with breathtaking sea views into an upscale tourist and visitor destination with swish hotel, fancy retail outlets, cycleways and nature walks, the plan for a residential development is quite another.

Events took an alarming – although perhaps, to seasoned observers of our planning process, not unexpected – turn last month when Tetrarch asked Fingal County Council to rezone part of the lands for 195 senior living homes.

The request resulted in dark mutterings from councillors about older people being used as ‘Trojan horses’ for the development of green spaces and the need to protect the area’s biodiversity, while resident groups began organising petitions.

So far thousands of signatures have been gathered, a sign that the fate of Howth Castle might turn into a right royal row, as bitterly divisive as any feud from the Gaisford-St Lawrence family’s 800-year history in Howth.