Protect Cooley Peninsula

Protect Cooley Peninsula In July 2024, people across Cooley Peninsula started a campaign opposed to proposed greenway routes through our gardens, fields and farms.

We stand together to protect our future livelihoods & our safety. We want our concerns to be addressed not ignored!

13/03/2026

Almost 600 submissions have been made to Louth County Council as part of the Public Consultation Phase 3 ‘of the Dundalk Bay–Carlingford Greenway, councillors have been told.

🤷‍♂️When information conflicts, trust is eroded. Clarity doesn’t need to be this difficult!!🤷🤷‍♀️Two completely conflict...
26/02/2026

🤷‍♂️When information conflicts, trust is eroded. Clarity doesn’t need to be this difficult!!🤷🤷‍♀️

Two completely conflicting speed limit signs have appeared on the same stretch of road here on the Cooley Peninsula.

When it comes to road safety, this isn’t funny and it isn’t trivial. Speed limits are there for a reason to protect drivers, pedestrians and families who use our roads every day. There’s no room for error, no room for mixed messages.

But if something as straightforward as speed signage can end up this confused, is it any wonder people are left scratching their heads over the proposed greenway?

What we’re seeing feels all too familiar:
• Lack of clarity
• Confusion
• Mixed messages
• No clear accountability

We are law-abiding citizens. We pay our taxes. We follow the rules. All we ask for in return is consistency, transparency and clear communication.

When the authorities can’t even get the basics right, trust begins to erode. And once trust is gone, it’s very hard to rebuild.






National Greenway Action Association
Achill Greenway Action Group
Cork To Kinsale Greenway Residents Association
Threat to Belclare to Murrisk Community
Dundalk Leader
Cooley Sheep Breeders Association
The Argus
Louth Live Dundalk Democrat
LMFM

🔁 The “Copy & Paste” Greenway Playbook 🔁We’re seeing the same story play out again and again - Cork to Kinsale, the Cool...
19/01/2026

🔁 The “Copy & Paste” Greenway Playbook 🔁

We’re seeing the same story play out again and again - Cork to Kinsale, the Cooley Peninsula, and now North Wicklow. Different places, same script.

👉Emerging Preferred Route Corridors announced despite significant public objections
👉A lack of meaningful consultation
👉Routes largely on privately owned land, impacting hundreds of homeowners and farmers

……And the concerns? They’re identical everywhere:
😧Anxiety and stress caused by lack of clarity and lots of uncertainty
😧Fear of losing livelihoods and family land
🤔Serious questions about who will actually use these greenways
🦺Safety for people using isolated greenways
🦺Safety and security for those living beside them
🦺Biosecurity concerns for farmers

Communities across Ireland are giving the same feedback, the same rationale, and raising the same red flags - yet Transport Infrastructure Ireland continues to support greenway development in exactly the same way.

We welcome the review of the TII Code of Practice …..but let’s be clear: change is needed now, not at the end of another flawed process.

It’s time for:
✔️Genuine engagement
✔️Actively listening to those directly impacted
✔️Routes that respect homes, farms, and livelihoods

Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

😡That sounds uncomfortably familiar right now.😡





Cork To Kinsale Greenway Residents Association
Irish Rural Association
Dundalk Leader
National Greenway Action Association
Threat to Belclare to Murrisk Community
Achill Greenway Action Group
LMFM
Agriland.ie
The Argus
Louth Live Dundalk Democrat

22/12/2025

🎄Together at Christmas - and even stronger in the New Year 💪

As we head into Christmas, we want to wish everyone a festive and peaceful time with family, friends and neighbours.

🥺 This has been a challenging year for many in the Cooley Peninsula, as we try to get to grips with the rationale for a proposed greenway through our gardens, and our small fields, that is being imposed on us.

🥺 For many of us, it almost feels like we have done something wrong and now we are being punished, yet in reality we have just spent our lives living in this rural community, minding our own business.

😊 THANK YOU to each & every person who has been involved this year - from attending the Demo@TheDail, helping with submissions, attending public meetings as well as consultation sessions, raising awareness & educating others who don’t understand the impact on us - every little bit of support makes a big difference. THANK YOU!

👉 So, let’s put 2025 behind us and come back in the new year united, determined and committed - one community standing together to safeguard our homes, our future and our livelihoods.

🎗️We are here for each other – we will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with our neighbours, our friends, our families, our community.

🎗️We are here to support each other and will continue to campaign for “No to CPOs” for this greenway.

🎄Christmas is a time for reflection and togetherness, and we hope the coming days bring some much-needed rest and comfort to every home, free of the dark “greenway” cloud hanging over us.

🙏 Wishing you a safe, restful and peaceful Christmas.

See you all in 2026!




Cork To Kinsale Greenway Residents Association
Irish Rural Association
National Greenway Action Association
Threat to Belclare to Murrisk Community
Achill Greenway Action Group
Dundalk Leader
Cooley Sheep Breeders Association
St Patrick's GFC Lordship
Cooley Kickhams

🏡Behind EVERY ‘Strip of Land’ is a Family – NOT A LINE ON A MAP 📍Too often, we’ve had to listen to the comment “it’s onl...
19/12/2025

🏡Behind EVERY ‘Strip of Land’ is a Family – NOT A LINE ON A MAP 📍

Too often, we’ve had to listen to the comment “it’s only a strip of land – what’s your problem?”.

For anyone who thinks that, we kindly ask you to put yourself in our shoes……

👉What if that “strip of land” meant your home was suddenly just metres from a public walkway, with strangers passing daily?

👉What if that “strip of land” meant losing the garden at the front of your house - the space your children played in, where you sat in the evenings, or that gave your home privacy and a sense of safety?

👉What if that “strip of land” cut through a field in a way that meant your son or daughter could no longer build a home there? That field that you had earmarked for them since they were young?

👉What if that “strip of land” meant farm animals having to cross a greenway several times a day, creating real safety risks for people and livestock?

👉What if that “strip of land” meant you could no longer farm in the way you - and generations before you - relied on to make a modest living from the land?

👉What if that “strip of land” ran through a remote field, far from houses or oversight - would you honestly be comfortable letting your child walk there alone?

👉What if that “strip of land” was taken from you forcibly, against your will, for a greenway that is non-essential infrastructure?

😢These concerns aren’t hypothetical. They’re real, practical, and deeply personal.

So maybe, just maybe, you now understand why people are nervous, worried, or at their wits’ end.

🤔Remember: it’s very easy to dismiss the impact when it’s not your home, your family, or your future on the line.

🥺We’re not being difficult.
👂We’re asking to be heard.

🎄And in this season of goodwill, please consider the impact disparaging comments and accusations have on those who are living through the reality of having a greenway cut through their property.





Dundalk Leader
LMFM
Cork To Kinsale Greenway Residents Association
Irish Rural Association
Achill Greenway Action Group
Threat to Belclare to Murrisk Community
National Greenway Action Association
The Argus
Cooley Sheep Breeders Association
St Patrick's GFC Lordship
Cooley Kickhams

It’s not only the children writing to Santa this year 😢 LMFMThe ArgusLouth Live Dundalk DemocratDundalk LeaderCooley ...
15/12/2025

It’s not only the children writing to Santa this year 😢






LMFM
The Argus
Louth Live Dundalk Democrat
Dundalk Leader
Cooley Sheep Breeders Association
Cork To Kinsale Greenway Residents Association
Irish Rural Association
Threat to Belclare to Murrisk Community
National Greenway Action Association
Achill Greenway Action Group
Agriland.ie

😔What have we done to deserve this?? 😔Despite the festive season, our community is at breaking point. What should be a t...
12/12/2025

😔What have we done to deserve this?? 😔

Despite the festive season, our community is at breaking point. What should be a time of calm and connection has instead become a time of high alert. Every unexpected knock on the door, every surveyor on the roadside, every high-vis jacket triggers the same fear: is this something to do with the greenway?

👉People are exhausted. Minds are racing. Focus is gone.
👉No one knows what the “right” thing to do is anymore. Small groups gather at gates and shop counters, debating whether they should ask for in-person consultation meetings - but worried they’ll say too much, or be overwhelmed by people who know the process inside out. Others cling to the hope that if they stay quiet, maybe the issue will just pass them by.

📨 Meanwhile, families are trying to support elderly neighbours who are still reeling from letters landing through their doors - letters about gardens, driveways, and small plots kept for the next generation suddenly marked for a greenway. No-one can understand why they have no choice.

😠Stories are circulating of homes facing the loss of a significant part of their garden, of routes proposed within metres a family home, and of serious safety concerns along a busy road used daily by HGVs travelling to one of Ireland’s largest ports. These aren’t rumours - this is the reality facing many!

😠Underneath it all sits one profound question: why is this quiet, rural community being labelled a “health and safety risk” - so unsafe, apparently, that officials say they cannot even come out to meet us properly? How can a place we’ve lived in, cared for, and built our lives around suddenly be framed in this way?

🥺People here are shaken. They’re anxious. They’re trying to protect their homes, their heritage and their future.

This isn’t the Cooley Peninsula we know - and it’s not a community that will stand by silently while uncertainty and fear take hold.

👉We deserve clarity.
👉We deserve honesty.
👉We deserve respect.
👉We deserve meaningful consultation and our concerns to be taken seriously – we are not a tick-box, we are a community, just like any small community in towns, villages, and rural communities throughout Ireland.

PUT YOURSELF IN OUR SHOES…………






Dundalk Leader
Cooley Sheep Breeders Association
LMFM
Cork To Kinsale Greenway Residents Association
The Argus
Louth Live Dundalk Democrat
National Greenway Action Association
Threat to Belclare to Murrisk Community
Achill Greenway Action Group
Irish Rural Association

😑When the facts don’t stack up, projects are scrapped…..there IS Hope!🤞🤞This week’s announcement that the Sligo Greenway...
02/12/2025

😑When the facts don’t stack up, projects are scrapped…..there IS Hope!🤞🤞

This week’s announcement that the Sligo Greenway has been suspended shows that projects which rely heavily on private land CAN be stopped.

In Sligo, the alternative “alongside” route would have impacted 250 private land parcels, required over 70% private land acquisition, carried higher ecological risks, and pushed costs up by 22% - all of which meant it simply wasn’t viable.

Crucially, it diverged from the Greenway Code of Best Practice, which is clear: use state-owned land first to minimise impacts on private property.

💪If that logic stands in Sligo, it must stand in Cooley Peninsula too.💪

We HAVE to believe that we can stop a greenway being forced through private land here.
👉Communities matter.
👉Homes matter.
👉Farmland matters.

….and when the facts stack up, decisions can change.

💪💪Stay strong – this announcement proves that nothing is inevitable.




Cork To Kinsale Greenway Residents Association
LMFM
Louth Live Dundalk Democrat
The Argus
Dundalk Leader
Cooley Sheep Breeders Association
Achill Greenway Action Group
National Greenway Action Association
Threat to Belclare to Murrisk Community
Irish Rural Association
Irish Farmers' Association
Agriland.ie

😢Tick-box process - real-life impact 😡Two days on from what we called a dark day in the Cooley Peninsula… and that dark ...
27/11/2025

😢Tick-box process - real-life impact 😡

Two days on from what we called a dark day in the Cooley Peninsula… and that dark cloud still hangs heavily over us. Families are in shock. Questions remain unanswered. Confusion has been created rather than clarity provided.

We’re being told that “most of the route follows the public road” - and yes, some of it does. But as we’ve always said, the devil is in the detail. A 6-8 metre greenway along the roadside isn’t harmless. It eats into gardens. It could result in a greenway right up near people’s homes. It forces a completely different landscape on families who’ve lived here for generations.

And the corridor they’ve drawn? It includes a graveyard, schools, GAA pitches and even the golf course. Seriously? It also crosses the main road and cuts across entrances to local businesses. How any of this is supposed to work safely or sensibly is beyond us! 🤷‍♂️

Yet all we’ve been given is a generic letter telling us nothing more than the next steps in their tick-the-box process. No real detail. No real answers. No genuine engagement……again! 😡

🤜 But here’s what we do know: we will STAND TOGETHER. We will organise. We will build our plan….and we will not stop.

🛑 We will not let anyone forcibly take what we call home or threaten the livelihoods that sustain our families.

💪 We continue to say No to CPO - and we continue to demand respect, transparency and meaningful consultation.

Our community deserves nothing less.





LMFM
Louth Live Dundalk Democrat
The Argus
Dundalk Leader
National Greenway Action Association
Irish Farmers Journal
Irish Rural Association
Cork To Kinsale Greenway Residents Association
Threat to Belclare to Murrisk Community
Achill Greenway Action Group
Cooley Kickhams
St Patrick's GFC Lordship
Cooley Sheep Breeders Association
Agriland.ie

😱When the postman brings panic….a community left on edge 😳What should be a season of putting up decorations and settling...
25/11/2025

😱When the postman brings panic….a community left on edge 😳

What should be a season of putting up decorations and settling into Christmas spirit has instead become a morning of anxious waiting - watching the letterbox, second-guessing every sound, wondering what the postman might bring.

People are distracted, on edge, and carrying a fear that NO community should have to shoulder.

😔It truly feels like a dark day for the Peninsula …..and one that never needed to happen.

💪But we’ll face whatever comes, side by side.

Remember to come along to the Public Meeting this Thursday to discuss next steps and learn what happened in other greenway projects around the country




LMFM
Louth Live Dundalk Democrat
The Argus
Dundalk Leader
Cooley Sheep Breeders Association
Cooley Kickhams
St Patrick's GFC Lordship
Irish Rural Association
Cork To Kinsale Greenway Residents Association
National Greenway Action Association
Achill Greenway Action Group
Agriland.ie

💪Don’t watch from the sidelines - stand up, show up and make your voice count💪 Time to stand together, united, supportiv...
24/11/2025

💪Don’t watch from the sidelines - stand up, show up and make your voice count💪

Time to stand together, united, supportive, and determined to Protect Cooley Peninsula from CPOs for greenways. We are ONE community and will not let anyone divide & conquer!

This is YOUR home
This is YOUR farm
This is YOUR livelihood
This is YOUR families’ future
Stand up for the next generation

BE THERE - Thursday @ 7.30pm. This is YOUR time to support your community. Everybody welcome 🫵

Cooley Sheep Breeders Association
Cooley Kickhams
St Patrick's GFC Lordship
Dundalk Leader
The Argus
Louth Live Dundalk Democrat
LMFM
Agriland.ie
National Greenway Action Association
Irish Rural Association

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