Sunday, April 24th, 1932 was a day of tension in the sleepy Derbyshire village of Hayfield. The Duke of Devonshire had recently closed access to nearby Kinder Scout, the highest mountain of the Peak District. As a result, 15 square miles of moorland had become inaccessible to most recreational users, writes John G O'Dwyer
Barry Rothman, a mechanic from Manchester and secretary of the largely working-class Lancashire Workers Sport Federation, decided that collective action was required. He called for a mass trespass to the summit of the "forbidden mountain". The middle-class Manchester Ramblers Federation, which already enjoyed privileged access to the Peak District, condemned the demonstration and Hayfield Parish Council reminded the organisers that their actions were illegal.
Nevertheless, 400 protesters assembled on the day - under the eyes of a large force of Derbyshire police - and set off towards Kinder Scout singing The Red Flag. About half-way up, they encountered a stick-wielding contingent of the Duke of Devonshire's gamekeepers. In the ensuing scuffle the keepers were swept aside and one of their number was slightly injured. The trespassers continued to the summit where they were joined in triumph by another group of protesters from Sheffield.
As they returned, six of the trespassers were arrested. The subsequent jailing of Rothman and four of his companions unleashed a wave of public sympathy and united walkers across Britain in demanding the right to ramble. The Ramblers Federation belatedly lent its support and a protest rally drew an attendance of 10,000. When the protesters were released from prison they became folk heroes, lauded in song and in story. Nevertheless, their ultimate vindication took 70 years. In 2002, the present Duke of Devonshire apologised unreservedly for the action taken by his grandfather against the trespassers.
The Kinder trespass was commemorated earlier this year in a 75th-anniversary celebration. It is now widely credited with sparking the mass movement for access to the English countryside that ultimately led to the post-war Access to the Countryside Act. This required every local authority to map all rights-of-way; and once mapped, these paths were considered definitive. It also provided the enabling legislation for the 11 national parks that now exist in England and Wales and attract more than 100 million visitors annually. In the year 2000, the law was taken a step further when the Countryside and Rights of Way Act created a new legal right to roam over areas of open, uncultivated countryside.
No such legislation exists here. Someone owns every square metre of Ireland and there is no legal obligation on landowners to allow recreational land use. Not surprisingly, a number of access issues have developed, particularly in the west, while in recent years walking tourism has stagnated. The response of the Government was to establish Comhairle na Tuaithe (the Countryside Council) in 2004, with membership drawn from farming, walker and other interest groups. This body is mandated with finding a consensual solution to the access issue, but little has been achieved so far.
Many interested parties are now becoming impatient with this perceived foot-dragging and are calling on the Government to enact UK style legislation enshrining a legal right of access to unfenced upland areas. So far the Government has refused to legislate, seeing a partnership approach as the best way forward.
So what is the likely response to such intransigence? Could we possibly see Barry Rothman-style mass trespasses at Ireland's access flashpoints? Are the protests that have already taken place at Enniskerry and the Old Head of Kinsale likely to incubate a nationwide movement? Probably not. The Kinder Scout trespass arose within and class conflict of industrial-age Britain. Great industrial cities such as Sheffield and Manchester border the Peak District, which in the hungry 1930s was hugely important as a source of free open-air recreation. Yet most of what is among Britain's best-loved landscapes was denied to the urban working classes. It was a cause awaiting the arrival of a radical left-winger such as Rothman.
In contrast the Irish uplands are - with a few exceptions - generally available to recreational users. In more than 20 years of hill-walking I have never had access denied or been the recipient of an angry word from a landowner. And while a recent Mountaineering Council of Ireland survey suggests access problems are becoming more common, they have tended so far to remain localised and have not offered the sort of cause célèbre that would be associated with the closure of, say, Lugnaquilla in Wicklow.
The patchwork of smallholdings characteristic of Ireland also means that any Rothman style trespass would most likely be directed against the farming community, rather than an imperious and wealthy Duke, making it difficult to estimate where public sympathy would fall. When a Sligo farmer was jailed four years ago for intimidating walkers he attracted a surprising degree of sympathy and support. On his release from prison, Andy "Bull" McSharry was greeted as a hero both by leaders from the main farming organisations and representatives of his local community.