Making The Case For The Cliff Walk’s Return

The clearing continues… SAT26OCT24

aving begun their weekly Saturday mornings clearing the overgrown and neglected trek last month, Friends Of The Cliff Walk have now put their case for the reopening after four years of the town’s much-loved tourist attraction.

Calling on years of research – including a commissioned and then ignored report recommending changes ten years ago – Peter Murtagh, Dermod Dwyer and the rest of the volunteer group had much to say last night at the monthly Greystones Municipal District meeting.

Kelly, Dwyer, Murtagh & Flynn cut through the crap

Being gentlemen though, there was no swearing. Or throwing of chairs.

Here’s their full presentation to our councillors and officials last night, given by the Murtagh lad…

Cathaoirleach, councillors, officials, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for giving Friends of the Cliff Walk this opportunity to address you. We appreciate it very much.

Our name explains what we are about, as does our slogan – Open Our Cliff Walk.

There’s something of a deliberate emphasis on the word ‘our’, because as we see it, the Cliff Walk is our walk. Ours in the sense of the community here in Greystones, but also in Bray and more generally in north Wicklow, Dublin and beyond.

It has been a real revelation to us to experience, as we have been clearing and restoring the walk in recent weeks, that users come from as far away as Switzerland and Canada and all places in-between. And they were visitors, not our foreign-born residents who have made Ireland their home and who seem to us to use the Cliff Walk in great numbers.

According to Wicklow County Council’s own estimate, some 350,000 people use the walk annually. Or did until the Council closed it.

The Taoiseach has responded to our campaign and announced on social media his intention to set up a task force to ‘get this walk reopened’. This is good news – after a near four-year long litany of the opposite. But first, we need to see some details…

Dwyer, Murtagh & Gallagher at your service…

What’s the brief and what’s the deadline? We hope it is weeks and not months. We hope also that we can play a role, a constructive role – which we would very much like to. We want to be part of the solution.

I should introduce us…

Dermod Dwyer is likely known to many of you through his community work, especially with the Town Team. Dermod has had a long and successful career, much of it in hospitality and tourism. And having retired not long ago as chairman of the Convention Centre in Dublin he remains Chairman of the nearby Powerscourt Estate. I should emphasise, however, that he is here is a personal capacity but his credentials are important in the current context.

Georgia Gallagher runs her own business, Sugar Loaf Virtual Assistant, through which she mentors others seeking to make a business impression with social media. She and her doctor husband are also outdoor enthusiasts.

Absent, unfortunately due to other commitments but very much part of our core group, are Donal Flynn, a retired engineer, environmentalist and father of the Happy Pear brothers, who are among our strongest supporters. Donal has campaigned long over the state of the Cliff Walk via Sustainability Greystones and I should add that much of our work has been built on theirs.

Adam Kelly, who is also away, runs Pura Vida, a fitness business in Greystones. Adam is also the physical fitness advisor behind the Gavin Glynn Foundation annual triathlon in Greystones.

Barry McCleary will be well-known to some of you here as he is very active in the town centre, notably at present through rebuilding the red brick terrace that was Helena Cottage and developing the rear of that site.

I am a retired journalist and have also been active in various community projects in recent years.

I outline these credentials not to suggest we are somehow important or should be listened to any more than others. My aim is to underscore what I hope is obvious: which is that we are serious in our endeavours, we are determined and, yes, we do have a level of expertise, but where we do not, we seek it from others.

You will know that since early September, we have been going to the Cliff Walk for an hour or two every Saturday morning and, starting from the Greystones end, have been strimming, trimming and slashing back grass, nettles, brambles and small trees, trying to restore the path from its current state of dereliction and doing so with safety in mind – which we emphasise each time we set to work.

The path, which is a Public Right of Way, and as such one of the very few in the State, has been closed since early 2021. That is, for almost four years, and has become a victim of what can only be described as wilful neglect.

As of the Bank Holiday weekend just passed, our clearing and cutting back has exposed much of the hitherto hidden retaining wall, separating farmlands from the trail. We have reinstated an unimpeded passage, from the field by the Dart Level Crossing to perhaps 200 meters shy of the junction between the Walk and the Cliff Manor road. And we intend to carry on until at least the whole of the Greystones side of the Head has been restored.

When we started, we were four and then five volunteers. We created a Facebook group page, Friends of the Cliff Walk, and an Instagram account of the same name, and put up photos of what we had done and a short explanation as to why.

The reaction was instant and overwhelming. Other members of our community, and also from Bray, reacted with uniform praise and gratitude, many volunteering to join. And did join.

Again, this is not to say ‘aren’t we great’ or anything like that. It is to emphasise only the very widespread and positive community support for what we are doing. The Facebook group now has over 900 members. We have over 600 Instagram followers and over 1,300 people have signed a petition demanding that you, the Council, reopen the Cliff Walk. Clearly from what has been flagged by the Taoiseach, this level of engagement has not gone unnoticed.

In our view, there are several compelling reasons why the Cliff Walk can, and must, be reopened. And a sense of urgency and commitment must be applied to overcoming the challenge of doing that.

Pic: Robert Madden

The Taoiseach’s taskforce must have a deadline and a short one at that.

The Cliff Walk is an extraordinary and exceptional asset to our community and it is nothing sort of scandalous that it has been treated as it has – and by this Council.

As we have stated, some 350,000 people were using the walk annually before it was closed. If even a fifth of them spent €10 on their walk – on a cup of coffee, a bottle of water, a sandwich or piece of fruit – that would represent an infusion of €700,000 into the local economy.

Closed for nearly four years? That’s a guesstimated loss of €2.8 million to local businesses and these figures are not, we suggest, unreasonable.

And I can tell you that each of the business owners we have interviewed for social media postings in our campaign has expressed views about you ranging from the dismissive to downright contempt. They are fed up that a solution to this problem has not been found for almost four years. And so are we.

But while the business case for a rapid reopening is strong, it is by no means the only, or even the most compelling, reason for sorting out this failure, because failure it is.

There is a public health, a community health, imperative to reopening the Walk. Tens of thousands of people hiked or ran the route, some daily, some weekly, helping to keep themselves fit and healthy by leading active lives. We have been saying this from the outset – and so the Taoiseach’s same observations are a welcome validation.

And what of the mental health benefit? The solace to be had from walking a wild, breath-taking place on one’s doorstep is priceless. The mental health benefits of exercise are well known but what thought, if any, was given to that loss in closing the walk? None, it would seem to us.

And then there is the visitor, or tourism, aspect to all this. It is really striking to be working on the path, as we have been, and to find oneself talking to walkers from Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, the Americas, the UK, Northern Ireland, from Central and Eastern Europe, many of them now resident in Ireland.

All who have engaged with us are either bemused, bewildered or disbelieving at the state of the Walk – and the fact that it was closed by the Council.

One of the business friends of the Cliff Walk who spoke to us, John Byrne of the Beach House, put it very simply: this is an engineering problem that requires an engineering solution. And he’s correct.

That solution, albeit perhaps a temporary one, is available and, what’s more, has been put to the Council already. But it was, in our view, rejected out of hand, with a dismissiveness bordering on contempt.

Dr Bill Murphy

Bill Murphy is an outdoor recreation consultant with a doctorate in wilderness studies from UCD. Dr Murphy spent 34 years working with Coillte, 15 of them as Head of Recreation, in which role he oversaw safe public access to forests. Indeed, I think Dr Murphy is well known to Wicklow County Council. A decade ago, you commissioned a report from him on the Cliff Walk. It was a comprehensive analysis of the Walk, its then state and its potential. It ran to 40 pages and is probably somewhere in your offices still.

But it was not acted upon, to the best of our knowledge.

Bill Murphy brings to this problem a level of expertise greater than anyone else in this room, and I think probably greater than all of us put together. Earlier this year, Sustainable Greystones commissioned him to look again at the Walk, in light of the 2021 boulder clay slippage on the Greystones side, and the rock fall on the Bray side.

To remind ourselves, the rock fall was minor in scale – perhaps a full lorryload of rock detaching itself from the cliff face and falling onto the path, and easily cleared.

And this is the boulder clay slippage on the Greystones side….

Dr Murphy’s report for Sustainable Greystones is just seven pages long but is detailed, contains drawings and measurements and, crucially, suggests both an interim solution and a longer-term addressing of the problems that led to the slippage, which is a mere 14 meters, or about 40 feet, long.

That report was given to this Council earlier this year in the hope that it might prompt some constructive engagement, leading to action. It did not. In fact, it was dismissed out of hand and without any detailed engagement, on the part of the Council.

We want this meeting to understand that this is wholly unacceptable and will not be tolerated by this group. That concerned and well-intentioned residents, who go to the trouble,  at their own expense, of getting serious analysis and advice from a recognised expert only to be told, directly, that the Council is not interested in anything Dr Murphy has to offer, and that the Cliff Walk will not – and I quote what the official said – ‘will not reopen – not on my watch’, as it was put.

I have to tell you, councillors and officials, we are not accepting that.

And when I use a phrase such as ‘will not be tolerated’ by us, I mean that if it happens again in the future, if well-intentioned solutions, however flawed or inadequate others might consider them to be, and indeed might well be, are dismissed out of hand and without any engagement of substance, we will publicise that fact and tell the people of this community, and beyond, what is going on.

In the meantime, when the taskforce is up and running, we will ensure that Dr Murphy’s suggestions are with it and can form part of their deliberations.

All of this begs several questions:
⦿ Is it really the Council’s position that the Cliff Walk will never reopen? If so, on who’s authority was that decision
taken? And where does that decision stand now, on foot of the Taoiseach’s announcement that the Walk will reopen?
⦿ As mentioned, the Cliff Walk is a public right of way. That right of way has effectively been extinguished for
nearly four years. On what legal basis has that happened? Were noticed to this effect placed, to allow for public consultations?
⦿ On what basis was the Cliff Walk closed in February 2021? Was a safety audit conducted? If so, by whom and is their report available for inspection?
⦿ It has been communicated, in media and via councillors, that the Council is seeking to have the path moved? When was the last time any official of the Council spoke to, or had written communications on this matter, with any of the affected landowners?
⦿ If land acquisition is the chosen solution, has a Compulsory Purchase Order intention been advertised publicly? If not, why not? Have ‘notices to treat’ been sent to the landowners, as required under the relevant Act? If not, why not? And if yes, what was their response?

Cathaoirleach and councillors, we know many of you have raised the closure of the walk and are unhappy that it remains closed. But these questions are asked because, quite simply, there is a total lack of belief on our part, and in the wider community, that anything was actually being done to resolve this situation. There is no evidence known to us that efforts were in reality being made to restore full and unfettered public access to the Cliff Walk.

We are all exasperated and frustrated at this. But maybe now, maybe, an end is in sight.

Pic: Adrian Hendroff

In recent days, we as a group were saying to each other how unique our Cliff Walk was. How no other capital city we could think of had such an amazing treasure on its doorstep.

A linear walk and rail journey that could be combined, go one way, return the other, experiencing the cliffs and seascape in different but complementary ways.

Of course, our walk is not really unique. Wonderful walks exist in many parts of Europe close to major cities, particularly in central and eastern Europe, Scandinavia and in many parts of the UK – across the Irish Sea in Angelsea and Pembrokeshire, for example.

But if the nascent taskforce really wants an example closer to home, something that might inspire Wicklow to rise to the challenge, to where might it turn for inspiration?

Well, no further than the far end of the Dart line. Where they have, we feel, an entirely different approach.

Howth Head Cliff Walk: spectacular scenery, a well-maintained path, steep slope but restrictive safety barriers not deemed necessary. There’s slight erosion to the path at one point but nothing to be alarmed about. There are anti-erosion path steps properly maintained, water run-off barriers to help preserve the path, and when it comes to their WWII Eire sign, it is fully restored and explained.

What can be learned from such an approach? The first, I suggest, is that there is a presumption that users are responsible for keeping themselves safe. Fingal clearly is not cowed by fear of lawyers and insurance claims – they run the Howth Head path; not the pests of the compo culture.

The Howth path is in excellent condition. There are several simple seats, made from situation-appropriate materials – that is, local stone. Much is made of the views of the Bailey Lighthouse and Dublin Bay. The Eire sign has been fully restored and is celebrated. The Walk is a tourism magnet. A couple from Germany, Daniel and Nadine, were photographing dolphins and saw the walk first from their plane coming into land. Tour operator Ross O’Connor brings people to the walk every week. “They love it here,” he told us excitedly. “I bring them here and they walk and get photos, and then we go down into the town and have lunch.”

But here’s a key difference between the Howth walk and ours.

I thought at first they were a Friends of the Howth Head Cliff Walk group. But no, they are contractors, working for a company named King Landscaping, trimming the sides of the path, thinning over-exuberant Crocosmia bulbs and cutting back brambles and gorse encroaching on the path, the stone and cement seating.

And by whom were they contracted? Fingal Council. Now, if one local authority can do it, why can’t this one?

Take a look at what greets visitors to our Bray Head Cliff Walk, and the welcoming barrier at the Greystones entrance.

It’s not great, is it? Is this really the best we can do? After nearly four years? And of course the barriers are not working. Walkers are going around them, over them and under them – including, recently, a very large group of school children from Baldoyle, well looked-after by their teachers, it must be said. And if you react to all this by resolving to replace or strengthen the barriers, people will simply get around again.

This sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut barriers reaction to a rock fall and soil slippage has not been implemented in other, similar situations.

The Cove 21OCT23

Not long ago the tide swept away a railing by the rocks at the Cove swimming area. Should the entire Cove be sealed, placed off limits to everyone? Of course not; that would be absurd and thankfully it has not happened.

We believe our Cliff Walk can be reopened relatively easily, while the taskforce does its valuable and necessary work. Where there has been slippage, a small fence and ‘Beware!’ signage needs to be installed. At the same time, the path can be moved inwards, perhaps by 10 feet – as Bill Murphy suggested. Volunteers will help – ourselves included and with enthusiasm – as would Mountain Meitheal.

Let us work together!

A longer term solution involving Compulsory Purchase Orders may indeed be necessary. But it is not a given and it cannot be, surely, that several more years must elapse before the path can officially reopen while that process is in train?

What is not a long term solution is keeping the Cliff Walk off limits and directing people onto the footpath of the very busy Windgates Road. That is not the Cliff Walk.

But are we not also failing utterly to capitalise on the opportunity a properly restored Cliff Walk offers – one that is sensitively signposted, tells its story, celebrates its location, has seating and, crucially, is marketed effectively as an incentive to visit north Wicklow, the gateway to our Garden County?

There are differences in scale but can you imagine the Cliffs of Moher, Croagh Patrick, the Giants Causeway, the Wild Atlantic Way – or even the Howth Head walk – being closed for almost four years because of a problem that is solvable?

We can’t either. And yet, here we are. We accept the Council is under pressure – both financially and from competing demands and through staff shortages – but we can help. Please let us.

But if Wicklow County Council cannot rise to the challenge of repairing a minor boulder clay slippage and a rock fall,
without taking the most extreme action of shutting an entire 7km wild and beautiful walkway, beloved of the community in north Wicklow and by visitors from near and far, then perhaps the maintenance, management, and imaginative marketing, of this valuable asset needs to be elevated into the hands of others, who will bring to that challenge a can-do, must-do, will-do approach and turn the page on this failure.

We will all see what sort of on-going maintenance and management regime for the Cliff Walk is recommended ultimately by the Taoiseach’s taskforce but one thing is for certain: never again can this wonderful, valuable asset be allowed fall into dereliction through neglect.

Our community is better than that.

You can find out more about The Friends Of The Cliff Walk here, check out Dr Bill Murphy’s 2021 report here, recent developments at this much-loved hike right about here, and its long and winding history here.