South Roscommon road closed indefinitely as flooding set to hit record level
"It's a mess, isn't it?" remarked Teresa Beattie. "It's a terrible thing to be looking at, and it's been dragging on for so long."
Teresa and her husband Edward John, both aged in their 80s, were staring out at the now-closed road in front of their home in Ballagh, Rahara, where large sandbags were being deployed and industrial pumps were in constant use in an effort to keep the overflowing Lough Funshinagh at bay.
Water levels in this area of South Roscommon are all but guaranteed to hit a new record soon, surpassing the previous peak in 2021, and increasing the threat of floodwater breaching several local houses.
Last weekend, the L-2005 road in Ballagh was closed indefinitely, due to the worsening emergency, and Teresa and Edward John were advised by the council to vacate their home of more than 50 years "in the interest of their own personal safety".
The last time the water got this high they moved out for eleven months, but they told the Westmeath Independent they were hoping to stay put this time.
"We're going to try and stick it out. Hopefully we might be able to hold on," said Teresa, on Monday afternoon.
"You would have to do it to realise how hard it is to gather everything up (and leave). It's not just going yourself, it's gathering up everything belonging to a house after you've been living in it for all those years."
Anthony, a son of the couple, described the situation as "distressing" and "avoidable".
He spoke about the sense of frustration experienced locally at the fact that the flood relief pipeline to Lough Ree, which was designed to solve the Lough Funshinagh crisis, had been halted in 2021 by a High Court action taken by the Friends of the Irish Environment group.
"This keeps getting worse and worse, and it could all have been avoided," said Anthony.
"It's got nothing to do with (protecting) the environment, because the environment here is destroyed. The trees and everything are dead. Wildlife is gone. We used to have water hens in the fields, but they're all gone.
"It's a disaster. It's not a nice place to be living, to be honest. The (pipeline) work was almost complete, and it should have been left alone."
He said the current situation was very hard on his parents. "They're a retired couple and they just want a bit of peace, to be left alone, and to come and go as they want. It's very awkward for them now."
Mary Beattie, a neighbour of Teresa and Edward John, was also advised to move out as a precaution but indicated she would be staying put.
Mary has also lived locally for some five decades, and she pointed out that the flooding at Lough Funshinagh in the past few years was a recent phenomenon. "It was never like this before," she said.
The effects of the risen lake were clear to see in Ballagh on Monday. Bare tree stumps and electricity poles stood in water all around, while a long-vacant house that was once the local forge was submerged about five feet deep.
A bungalow known as the Lyons-O'Meara house had to be demolished in November 2022 after it was repeatedly flooded. Locals have now erected a poster on the roadside, showing the house in pre-flood times, alongside the heading: 'What has been lost'.
This week Roscommon County Council said it remained "fully committed" to finding a viable long-term solution to the flooding crisis at Lough Funshinagh.
It acknowledged, however, that this would be "a lengthy and complex" process, with consultants hired last year to begin work on a required environmental assessment of the lough and its habitat.
An online meeting also took place last week between the Lough Funshinagh Flood Crisis Committee and members of the European Commission. The meeting, facilitated by Sinn Féin MEP Chris MacManus, was attended by committee members along with TD Claire Kerrane and local councillor Laurence Fallon.
Lough Funshinagh's Special Area of Conservation (SAC) status was "discussed at length" at the meeting, along with the implications of the SAC status for emergency flood relief planning.
The local committee issued a statement afterwards saying the European Commission's Director for Biodiversity, Humberto Delgado Rosa, gave a commitment to engage with the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to progress matters at Lough Funshinagh, as the NPWS has not been involved thus far.
"Mr Delgado Rosa reiterated the need for the environmental assessment to be completed, but he emphasised that this process should not take 3-5 years; it could and should be done quickly," the Lough Funshinagh Flood Crisis Committee said.
For local residents, the immediate concern is what the next few weeks will bring, as the lake is expected to rise for another month or two, and on Monday its level was already approaching the record set in April 2021.
"The odd year it might stabilise (as Spring approaches), but that's rare," said Cllr Laurence Fallon. "You could expect it to go up by another foot, or maybe a foot and a half if the worst comes to the worst."
Tommy Carney is among the group of locals whose homes are only being kept dry at the moment thanks to a round-the-clock use of pumps.
"You are totally at the mercy of the weather," he said.
"It gets to you when it's been going on for so long. This (current water level) isn't just for this week or next week, it will be here until July at least.
"The (flood relief pipeline) is two-thirds complete. It beggars belief that there's a pipe two-thirds completed and it's allowed to be stopped.
"I don't know how you can make sense of that from any perspective; humanitarian, environmental, anything. It needs someone to say 'this is an emergency', and solve it.
"Because this is an emergency. The solution is there, and it's two-thirds in place," Tommy concluded.
In a statement last month, the Friends of the Irish Environment said it was not to blame for the ongoing crisis at Lough Funshinagh, arguing that the flood relief pipeline work undertaken on behalf of the council had been "unlawful" and that its High Court action had been taken to "uphold the law of the land".