The grounds attached to Castletown House, Celbridge, County Kildare, are set to almost double in area after the state agreed to purchase 235 acres in addition to the 237 acres already in State ownership. The cost of the land deal was €11.25 million and had been approved by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform because of the strategic importance of the land to the State.
The land was needed to reopen access to the Castletown Estate after the access from the M4 motorway was closed in September 2023. Since then, a group calling themselves the ‘gatekeepers’ maintained a presence at the access from Celbridge to underline their objection to access from Celbridge.
The grounds of Castletown are mainly managed for biodiversity. A wonderful hay meadow habitat has been developed, which is a great draw for invertebrates, the most notable being the increasing butterfly populations in the area.
Butterfly Conservation Ireland congratulates the Minister of State for the Office of Public Works, Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran, for this important acquisition for the state and urges the extension of the hay meadow habitat onto the additional lands. Hay meadows are protected under the Habitats Directive 1992 (Lowland hay meadows (Alopecurus pratensis, Sanguisorba officinalis) [6510]). These are dry grasslands that are mown rather than grazed with little or no fertiliser application. These are increasingly rare in Ireland, becoming especially scarce during the 1980s when hay-making was replaced with silage alongside its intensive chemical inputs.
We need more scenes like these in our landscapes.
