Despite years of campaigning, there’s still no safe access for all to Howth’s Balscadden Beach

The rope bannister leading down alongside the steep concrete stairs to Balscadden Beach was loose on Thursday late morning.

It was tied to a fence beside the entrance, off Balscadden Road. But it isn’t fixed to any point at the bottom of the stairs and so, lay limply to the side in long grass growing on the slope surrounding the beach.

A middle-aged couple visiting from Northern Ireland breathlessly walked up the 60 steps, laughing nervously at the useless rope, and leaning forward to keep their balance.

The beach, behind Howth’s East Pier, is about 150m long. Seaweed was scattered across the sands. It was silent, no waves and no birds.

But it’s often busy, says local Marie Ó’Laoi of the local campaign group Friends of Balscadden Beach. “Weekends are mad. You wouldn’t believe it.”

While popular, though, the beach isn’t easily reached. It isn’t marked as wheelchair accessible by either the Disability Federation of Ireland, or Beaches.ie, an Environmental Protection Agency-run database.

Elderly people with mobility issues find it hard to reach the beach, says Ó’Laoi, who has been working for 15 years now to open it up to more. “We want to improve the access, and even make it universally accessible.”

A spokesperson for Fingal County Council said it carried out a feasibility study to make it universally accessible last year.

But the next steps are unclear. The land leading down to the beach is privately owned and managed, they said.

Meanwhile, as the years pass, many people who used to enjoy the beach, now hesitate – reluctant to risk the 60 steps, says local Mary O’Brien Sheehan. “I would have years and years ago, but as we are getting older, it becomes an issue of access.”

One lifelong user who she knows, now in his nineties, doesn’t go down any longer, she says. “I struggle going down too. There are a number of us who had to stop using the beach, and I feel it’s terrible because I want everyone to use it.”

A right of way to the beach

Ó’Laoi helped to set up the Friends of Balscadden Beach group in 2008, known then as Friends of Balscadden Bay, she says. “It wasn’t really used much back then, except by a few local people.”

Historically, it had been a popular spot for both villagers and people from out of town, she says.

People also used to send their boats out into the waters using an old stoney ramp that is located at the bottom of the stairs, says Green Party Councillor David Healy. “But parts of that broke apart and were washed away.”

Scattered around the area are murals depicting nostalgic bathing scenes. Just inside the gate at the top of the stairs is a painting of two women looking out at the sea, perched atop an enormous beach hut.

Another mural on a cracked and weathered wall that is below an apartment complex and a grassy slope, which wraps around the curved beach, shows four colourful beach huts from its past.

There used to be huts like that on the beach in the mid-19th century, says Ó’Laoi. “When the Great Northern Railway used to come into Howth, if you had a first-class ticket and you produced it at a local hotel, they would give you a towel and the use of a hut.”

When Ó’Laoi set up the Friends of Balscadden group with a neighbour, their idea was to revitalise and bring the beach back into use as this beloved retreat, she says.

“We outlined some of the things we wanted to do, like tidying the beach, ordinary stuff. Our vision was to develop the bay area, but to do anything we wanted to improve the access,” she said.

In February 2011, Friends of Balscadden Beach published a plan, “The Case for Public Management of Balscadden Beach and Amenity Area”. Universal access was the first item on their to-do list.

The concrete steps need repairing and the route down and up needs safety handrails, it said. Any improvements would need to take on board disability access, and incorporate a ramp for wheelchair users and buggies, it said.

In May 2015, when Fingal County Council was preparing its Development Plan 2016 to 2021, Ó’Laoi’s group weighed in.

Their submission said they were in discussion with the council and other stakeholders about installing a boardwalk from the East Pier to the beach.

“Which will be a simple and attractive manifestation of the Right of Way to the beach,” it says. “Engineers reports have already been produced.”

And yet, there’s no boardwalk from the East Pier to the beach.

The next step

At the entrance to the beach from Balscadden Road is a sign, which says in red capital letters “EXTREME CAUTION.”

It tells anyone entering that, under the Occupiers’ Liability Act of 1995, the landowners cannot be held responsible for the injury or damage caused to persons who enter the property.

One of the issues around delivering a new accessible way to get to the beach is that the lands through which the current staircase cuts are under private ownership, says Ó’Laoi.

The grassy bank that goes down to the beach is privately owned and managed, a council spokesperson says.

These lands belong to the owner-occupied apartment complex, Asgard Apartments, situated beside the steps and overlooking the beach.

“But the beach is on public property, and the access down is a public right of way on private lands,” Ó’Laoi says.

In August 2022, the campaign saw one promising step forward when Fingal County Council allocated €50,000 for a feasibility study for universal access here, under the government’s Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure Scheme.

The study was carried out late last year, a council spokesperson said. But they were unable to provide a timeline for when a new access point would be delivered or state what the next step would be.

It may be necessary for the council to purchase the lands next, says Ó’Laoi. “It could be about negotiating for those lands, but the thing that we’re plugging is the access so that it’s there for other generations.”