Rundale

By Fiadh Tubridy

In October 2023 the government published a new ‘Coastal Change Management Strategy Report” about managing the risks associated with flooding and sea level rise due to climate change. One aspect of this focuses on the need for a “strategic managed retreat”, from areas which cannot be protected from flood risk. The idea of managed retreat is deeply interrelated with the provision of decent, secure housing which is problematic in the context of Ireland’s current housing crisis. Even at the best of times any form of planned resettlement should be very carefully scrutinised. But there is at least one example of planned relocation in the context of flooding in Ireland that involved the redistribution of land and housing as well as care for livelihoods and wellbeing which we can look to as an example today.

There are deep flaws with the way resources and investment and infrastructure to provide safety from natural hazards are currently allocated in Ireland. Decisions regarding investment depend heavily on benefit-cost ratios which weigh up the market value of assets at risk of flooding against the cost of investing in protective measures. These metrics necessarily privilege areas with higher land and property values, amounting to what Andreas Malm calls “adaptation for capital, rather than for people”. Correspondingly it is much more common to hear talk of the need for ‘hard decisions’ and the abandonment of lower-value land, often affecting rural communities, than when it comes to sites of concentrated capital like the Dublin Docklands.

One response to this situation from the political left might be a demand for ‘seawalls for all’ and a large-scale programme of investment in coastal and flood defences. In reality, this would require covering vast swatches of the Irish coastline and riverbanks in concrete seawalls, which would be both environmentally ruinous as well as technically unfeasible. It risks repeating the same logics of growth and extraction that caused the climate crisis in the first place. Even within Ireland it is basically inevitable that there will be some level of displacement linked to climate change and in this context there are important questions regarding who must retreat and under what circumstances.

In its discussion of managed retreat, the government’s recent coastal management strategy states that “local planning policy in areas where this approach may be required should also be directed to facilitate the movement of population”. This should immediately raise a red flag for anyone familiar with the typical operation of planning policy and local authorities in Ireland, which simply do not have the capacity, resources or skills to “facilitate the movement of population”. At one level managed retreat is a housing question, requiring the provision of alternative homes for people facing displacement by flooding. And in recent years the state has singularly failed in addressing displacement and homelessness across all fronts, let alone that induced by climate hazards.

This has not always been the case given that elements of the Irish state have previously demonstrated the capacity and legitimacy to facilitate the movement of people in response to both socio-economic pressures and natural hazard risk in a way that protects wellbeing and livelihoods, as illustrated by the example of the Shannon Valley Flood Relief Scheme and the role of the Irish Land Commission therein.

In November and December 1954, prolonged bad weather and heavy rainfall  led to severe flooding in Dublin, where the River Tolka burst its banks, and all along the Shannon between Athlone and Meelick Weir. Around 100 families in the townlands south of Athlone, such as Clonown, were forced out of their homes for several weeks. In the aftermath there were heated discussions about how future disasters of this type could be avoided. Beginning in the 1940s the state had begun a programme of ‘arterial drainage’ or channelisation of rivers and drainage of land to facilitate agricultural production. There were demands for drainage of the Shannon to prevent future flooding, but this was never seriously entertained due to the enormous scale of the engineering works that would be required.

In this context an alternative proposal arose involving the relocation of the households and farms of those who had been affected. Importantly, this built on the existing programme of land reform and redistribution being carried out at this time by the Irish Land Commission. The Land Commission was the state agency tasked with breaking up and redistributing large estates owned by large, often Anglo-Irish, landlords and landowners after Independence. It aimed to put into practice the new state’s commitment to address the legacy of colonialism and landlordism and meet the demand for access to land that had been a key driver of national independence. Through the Land Commission small farmers, often in the ‘congested districts’ of the West of Ireland, were provided with additional land and new houses typically close by to their original farms. Over the course of its operations, it was responsible for redistributing approximately 20% of the total agricultural land in the Republic.

One distinctive aspect of the Land Commission’s operations from the 1930s onwards were so-called ‘migration schemes’ whereby individuals or whole communities were provided with new farms, houses and generous subsidies outside the congested districts of the West. One of the better-known migration schemes was motivated by promoting the Irish language and led to the establishment of the Gaeltacht in Ráth Cairn, in County Meath, but most were about addressing the socio-economic ills afflicting small farmers in the West of Ireland.

In total, approximately 14,500 households were relocated through voluntary migration schemes between 1937 and 1978. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s these schemes were enthusiastically taken up due to the promise of a better life available to migrants. In relation to Ráth Cairn, Terence Dooley writes that “the overall long-term material welfare of the majority of the colony was substantially improved by their move east… The migrant surrendering a poor farm with poor outoffices usually gained a holding up to perhaps four times the value of the one he vacated, equipped with a good dwelling house and outoffices”.

Returning to the Shannon, after 1954 it was proposed that the Land Commission would carry out a migration scheme to relocate households out of the areas affected by flooding. This was met with both support and opposition, in the former case by small farming families who stood to benefit most. Denis Hughes, for example, lived in Clonown on the west bank of the Shannon just south of Athlone and was a staunch advocate of the relocation scheme, speaking in favour at various public meetings. He and his brother John later accepted a relocation deal and moved to adjacent farms outside Moate where Denis was provided a new house and farm about double the size of that he had left behind, illustrating the material benefits that were on offer through the migration scheme.  

Another firm supporter of relocation was Jack McQuillan, a local TD for Clann na Poblachta and later the National Progressive Democrats alongside Noel Browne. McQuillan’s base was comprised of small farmers in Roscommon and his support for a migration scheme for the Shannon tracked with his consistent calls for an acceleration and expansion of the Land Commission’s wider land reform programme.

On the other side, there was opposition from locals who did not want to move regardless of the risks. As reported in the Offaly Independent a local priest prophesised that the Shannon region would become “a valley of death and silence” if the project went ahead, which built on fears about rural depopulation and emigration. In the 1950s there was also growing opposition to the Land Commission’s activities within Fianna Fáil as well as Fine Gael, who had always represented the interests of large landowners. This included influential figures like Sean Lemass and Minister for Lands Erskine Childers, who were appalled by the “lavish state expenditure” required for the migration projects and favoured ending land reform and consolidating larger farms to facilitate industrialised methods of agricultural production.

What ultimately emerged from these conflicting demands and interests was a compromise scheme whereby the Land Commission built new houses on nearby higher ground for about sixty of the families who had been flooded, but they retained their existing farms and land. Only a small number of households, including the Hughes brothers, moved entirely outside the Shannon region. This meant people in the area could still be affected by periodic flooding of the land and access roads but they kept their links to the local area and community.

Beyond its historical interest, this project provides important lessons for climate adaptation and managed retreat today. Throughout the world exposure to climate risks is tied up with inequalities in access to land and housing. In general, working class and marginalised groups are pushed to the fringes, onto floodplains or steep slopes at risk of mudslides. If this isn’t already the case, places of safety from climate hazards are becoming increasingly valuable and exclusive. Dealing with these inequalities requires a willingness to confront private property rights and ensure equal access to land and housing that can offer safety from climate risks, which is a lesson that the Shannon case study illustrates through the connection between managed retreat and land reform.

Another thing it demonstrates is how people’s willingness to move is tied up with the material benefits and disadvantages of relocation in terms of housing and employment amongst other issues. By offering a promise of a better life, the Shannon scheme achieved a level of buy-in and legitimacy that would be envied by most contemporary planners and technocrats. Of course this is not to say that all forms of managed retreat must involve compensation given there are plenty of luxury coastal developments and holiday homes to which we should certainly apply the logic of ‘hard decisions’.

We can also learn from the political origins for the Shannon project; its redistributive elements came about through its connection to land reform and the new Irish state’s commitment to addressing the legacy of colonialism and meeting the welfare needs of its citizens. Others have highlighted the need to recapture the ideals and ambition of early 20th century social and infrastructural projects like Ardnacrusha and rural electrification in the context of the climate crisis. Like these other examples the Shannon project is contradictory but points to ideals, in this case of redistribution of land and housing, that are necessary if we are to cope with the effects of climate change while avoiding social devastation.

Other sources

Rydell, Louis E. River Shannon Flood Problem. Dublin: Office of Public Works, 1956

‘Migratory Scheme Gets Mixed Reception’, 15 January 1955, Offaly Independent, pg.1

Fallon, M., Fallon, R., Murray, P. and Ní Mhuirí S. A Sense of Place: Clonown, a County Roscommon Shannonside Community. Athlone: Clonown Heritage, 2006.