Farmers and residents in West Waterford have huge concerns over plans to extend the Greenway.
More than 100 attended a meeting in Ballyduff Upper on Friday evening, which was, at times, heated and emotional.
The proposals to establish a 74-kilometre walk and cycle route from Dungarvan to Mallow were discussed.
"There seems to be a [notion] from the hierarchy that this is a railway that is already in situ and it's only a case of putting down stone and off you go," John Leamy of Ballyduff Upper IFA told WLR News at the meeting.
"But, in reality, it's really different. There is no track anywhere.
"There are fields which are after being ploughed into tillage ground, dairy ground, and there are virtual houses after being built on the track."
This was a sentiment echoed by many of the locals present at the gathering in St Michael's Hall, which came on the back of a similar meeting in Fermoy earlier in the week.
The Dungarvan-Mallow Greenway would connect towns like Cappoquin, Lismore, and Fermoy, as well as many smaller villages on its way.
Comparison to existing Waterford Greenway
Waterford City and County Council CEO, Michael Walsh, addressed the meeting and spoke of the success of the existing Waterford Greenway, while also saying he respected the concerns raised.
He stressed that none of the concerns brought up in advance of that one being developed ever materialised.
However, this was of little comfort to people like local farmer, Martin Kenny.
"It's different because the Dungarvan-Waterford railway line was still intact - nearly 80% of it was still intact," he explained, "And CIÉ, or Iarnród Éireann owned that line.
"There weren't houses and yards built on the railway line, because they knew you couldn't build something if you don't own the land.
"It's an awful lot different when you compare one to the other."
Philip Heskin is another farmer from the area who again emphasised the extent to which the former railway route has been incorporated into people's farms.
"This was a railway which closed 56 years ago," he told WLR News, "I know in my own land, there is absolutely no sign of the railway.
"My father bought it out at the time from CIÉ. If you look across the land, there is no visible or physical sign of the railway.
"It's going to split a working farm and make the farm unworkable, basically."
Safety and security
Pauline Dahill runs a business on her parents' family farm near Glencairn; land which one day will become hers.
Her business has a number of different aspects to it, but when it comes to her concerns over the Greenway, she feels one aspect is especially relevant.
"I work with difficult horses, horses that have had problems," an emotional and worried Pauline told WLR's Kieran Foley after the meeting, "I work with kids and their ponies. We break horses, we educate horses, we fix them if they have issues.
"I cannot do that in privacy and work with these animals to help them and help their riders if I have an audience less than 20 metres away from me, cycling up and down or running up and down.
"Greenways are great, don't get me wrong. But it [would be] less than 20 metres away from my place work.
"If I am dealing with a difficult horse that is spooking or is afraid of human contact or people, a bicycle flying past me is not going to help me - in fact, it will get me killed."
Pauline was also one of the many people who highlighted security and safety concerns. Fears abound that a Greenway running through people's land and so close to their houses might result in an increase in crime.
She feels particularly scared for her elderly parents and her father, whose nerves she says lockdown affected greatly.
"Since he has found out about this Greenway, all I hear is 'How many tools are there? Have they robbed anything? Is the tractor there?', she elaborated.
"He is in a state of panic. He is convinced we are going to be robbed. We are constantly now trying to keep him calm.
"He thinks cows are going to be hurt, animals are going to be poisoned. He is stressed beyond stressed."
Martin Kenny was among the speakers at the Fermoy meeting earlier in the week, which led to more farmers contacting him to express their safety fears:
"I was contacted on Tuesday morning by two different farmers in my area - both in their late 70s who are still farming.
"They're worried about the Greenway going through their lands and the effects it will have on them, but they're also worried about their houses being near the Greenway.
"There has been an awful lot of rural crime on older people so you can't blame them for worrying. They're not sleeping over it."
Splitting farms and families
Noreen Barry lives between Lismore and Glencairn, where she and her husband, Donal, built their home on his parents' land just over 12 years ago.
They made sure to build well in off the road, so that any children they might have would have plenty of space to play safely.
"We are off a very busy road," she explained, "a very busy and very dangerous road. We don't allow our children to go on that road.
"Our access over to their grandparents is actually through the fields. They go over and back and we recently got a kind of a buggy thing that can be driven over and back.
"The way [the Greenway] is being proposed at the moment, it would end all of that.
"The Greenway would be going through two different areas: right behind our house, which is one of our access points to the farmyard; and another area, which would totally cut us off from ever again being able to access [the grandparents' house] safely."
Communication and consultation
One of the other points raised at Friday night's meeting was that locals need to be informed how they can have their say on the route and if they can contribute to the feasibility study being undertaken at the moment.
Elizabeth Kingston lives near Glencairn, where she is a pedigree Hereford breeder. She breeds and sells bulls solely from her farm.
She says it was only on Friday that she found out her farm may be impacted by the proposed Greenway route.
"I came to the meeting to try and understand and tie down how I can get involved to negotiate into this feasibility study," she said, "What I was trying to ask was 'what criteria are you using? And how do we get involved?'"
Waterford IFA Chairperson, John Heffernan, has been keeping in touch with developments on the Greenway extension plans for a number of months now.
However, he feels communication from those actually devising the plans has been poor, to say the least.
He told WLR News that people came to that meeting "because they were afraid and they needed information. Unfortunately, the TII has not done their job well to get that information out there."
Mr Heffernan says a sub-committee will be set up to work on people's concerns in Ballyduff Upper and the surrounding towns and villages.
He also confirmed that the Irish Farmers' Association will do what it can to support them in keeping the communication lines open on every level and support people in whatever way it can.
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