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Dursey Cable Car: The future is uncertain
Instead of the big hype, Dursey Island is surprisingly in for a summer of calm: The Dursey Cable Car, Ireland’s only cable car connecting Dursey Island to the mainland, will stop operating from April to November. At a non-public meeting of Cork County Council this week, the decision was made to shut down the cable car at the tip of the Beara Peninsula for seven months on safety grounds. Technical inspections apparently revealed that the two masts supporting the cable car across the Sound had been significantly damaged by wind and weather – most recently by December’s Storm Barra. Those who have always had a queasy feeling about crossing with the floating box now probably have good reason to do so.
The support structure for the cable car is to be repaired during the seven months off. Why the cable car should still be safe in February and March, but not after April, remains unanswered, as does the question of whether the two masts can be repaired once more, or more precisely reinforced, which would save about two years, or whether the steel masts have to be completely replaced. It is also not yet clear what impact the imminent closure will have on the grand plans to build a new cable car including a tourism centre on Dursey Sound for ten million euros, which could transport 650 passengers per hour to the hitherto idyllically quiet island.
The 22 parties who either own a house, a holiday home or farm on the island are now crying “disaster” and demanding the rapid deployment of a boat link. Most affected by the closure are the less than a handful of Dursey residents (according to Census 2016: 4) and the farmers who graze cattle or sheep on the island. The chipper Dursey Deli on the mainland and the bus driver who recently started chauffeuring foot-lazy summer visitors to the other end of the 6.5-kilometre-long island are also likely to suffer a sharp drop in business – unless the tourist hype is shifted to the ship.
However, the dangerous currents and frequent high waves in the sound between the mainland and the island, which often make landing on the island impossible, speak against this. It was precisely these dangers that led to the decision in the 1960s to build a safe cableway across the wild water. It was put into operation in 1969 and in pre-tourist times only served the islanders and the cattle. Today, hardly anyone lives on the island, but it has become the focus of the tourism industry.
Dursey Island
In November 2021, Ireland’s top planning authority, An Bord Pleanála, had approved the controversial project for the mass tourism marketing of Dursey Island – flatly contradicting its own inspector. Accordingly, a tourist fairground is now to be built on Dursey Sound at the tip of the Beara Peninsula in West-west Cork, attracting tens of thousands of rental car and campervan pilots to the south-western headland every year. (Read the full story here).
The project operator, Cork County Council, with the support of Fáilte Ireland, plans to quintuple Dursey’s current annual 20,000 visitors to 100,000 per year. To achieve this, island tourists will have to travel the entire length of the Beara Peninsula – either via Glengarriff or Kenmare. A visitor centre with a restaurant, sun terrace and souvenir shop is to be built on the mainland at the Sound, and a large car park will be able to accommodate 100 cars and several tourist buses. The narrow road out to Dursey Sound is to be widened, and an electronic traffic guidance system is to coordinate access to the Beara Peninsula from Glengarriff.
For the time being, the Supreme Planning Authority’s decision of November 2021 has put a cap on the future hustle and bustle at Dursey Sound. No more than 5,000 visitors per month are to be allowed to visit the island, which would mean 60,000 per year for the time being. But why do we need a new cable car that can transport 650 visitors per hour, i.e. on one or two days as many as are to be allowed per month?
So the future of the existing Dursey cable car hangs by a rusty thread, while building a new one is not going to happen any time soon. Eco-activists from Friends of the Irish Environment have just secured a court review of the approval given by the top planning authority, An Bord Pleanála. Friends of the Irish Environment, which has offices on the Beara Peninsula, is bracing itself for a long battle. Friends director Tony Lowes: “This could take time.”
Photos: Chris Baeuchle; Markus Bäuchle (title)
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