Reply To: Derelict Rural Dwellings

There must be several hundred farmhouses and cottages in various states of dereliction in every county in Ireland. If there was a really good grant scheme here for restoring them & bringing them back from the brink it would take off some of the pressure for new one-offs, which mostly look horrible in the landscape (i think).

An organisation called ‘Leader’ used to give grants for restoring old farmhouses. Do a search on them. Dunno what they were like on states of dereliction or making sure the buildings were restored in a historically correct way.

All the local authorities have grant schemes for works to protected structures to be administered by the Conservation Officer, but they usually have trouble giving away all their annual grant allocation cos of lack of resources to properly adminster it. Some countys don’t even have a Conservation Officer. If more resources were allocated, this scheme could be extended to derelict farmhouses & buildings of vernacular interest.

At least if the grant comes from the local authority you know the work will be done according to Best Conservation Practice (cos it will be part of the conditions of the grant) – so no plastic windows, no shiny fibre-cement roof slates, no heavy raised pointing to stonework.