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Over 1,000 culturally important farm buildings have been saved through the Department of Agriculture-funded Traditional Farm Buildings Grant Scheme, the Heritage Council has said.
The award-winning scheme, now running for 15 years, has been pivotal in putting a value on Irish cultural heritage, Anna Meenan from the Heritage Council told the Irish Farmers Journal.
“Before the scheme, we saw so many traditional farm buildings being knocked to make way for more modern sheds,” she explained. “But the scheme, first introduced in REPS 4, meant that there was a value put on these vernacular buildings.
“I’m a big believer in the ripple effect and when people see an old building repaired, they look at their own yard,” she said.
Farm buildings, typically built in a humble style from materials within five to 10 miles, would not be listed as protected structures, she explained, but they have a huge cultural heritage value.
The buildings which are eligible for the grant are traditionally built agricultural buildings made from local materials, generally up to the 1940s or 1950s.
Heritage value
“We’ve supported work all over the country, from Donegal to Kerry, Dublin, Wexford, Laois, you name it. The buildings have been cow byres, stables, pig houses, granaries and even up to a very classically built stable yard,” said Meenan, adding: “They all get equal consideration provided they are of heritage value.”
The smallest grant available is €4,000 up to a maximum of €30,000 and the grant can cover 75% of the cost of the project. These costs can include materials, labour (own or contracted), fees from professionals such as conservationists or ecologists and even training costs.
A study commissioned in 2022 to examine the merits of the scheme was very positive on its value for money and its importance in keeping skills alive, as well as the appreciation it created for the heritage of traditional buildings and building methods.
Meenan’s favourite result from the scheme is that of a Mayo farmer who wanted to knock an old building, but was persuaded to apply for the grant by his wife.
Hidden letters
As the gable end of the wall was being taken down stone by stone, they discovered jam jars hidden in the wall that contained letters between the farmer’s great aunt and uncle and relatives in Columbus, Ohio, at the time of the civil war when the building had been a safe house.
The letters are now preserved in the Davitt Museum in Foxford and the farmer has been to the US to talk about his discovery.
“That was the most amazing discovery, it makes the hairs stand on my neck!” said Meenan, adding: “To think that those letters would have been destroyed by a digger and never found.”
More recently, another participant in the scheme has been repairing an old Ahenny slate roof fixed with wooden pegs and he and his builder are now painstakingly replacing them with new wooden pegs.
The current scheme runs under the Rural Development Programme to the end of 2025 and Meenan is hopeful that it will be repeated under the next programme.
Permitted works
The grant is available for the conservation of traditional farm outbuildings, including roof, walls, structural repairs, windows and doors. The grant is also available for other related farm structures, including historic yard surfaces, walls, gate pillars and gates.
According to the Heritage Council: “The key conservation principle of minimum intervention applies - that is, carrying out a repair to fix what is wrong, but not setting out to do too much work.
“Works which are, in the opinion of the Heritage Council, restoration works, are very unlikely to be supported with grant aid.”
Interestingly, the 2022 consultants' report recommended that grant recipients should be permitted to convert their finished buildings to residential accommodation, which is currently not permitted.
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