When my Granny was still alive and living in her little cottage in the bulb of a little cul-de-sac in Fermanagh, we used to joke that she resided in The Valley of the Peeping Curtains. Nothing happened on that street that Granny (and many of her neighbours, in fairness) didn’t know about. The lace curtains – and they were always lace, for maximum peeping – twitched ferociously day and night as unfettered nosiness ran rampant.
I don’t look much like my Granny, but something I’ve definitely inherited from her is the tendency to be a nosy hole. One of the greatest let downs I’ve ever suffered was the 2020 launch of the HSE’s Covid-19 contact tracing app. Hundreds of thousands of people downloaded the app as the government and health officials tried to track and suppress the spread of the disease. On the one hand, it was an admirable demonstration of community harmony and civic duty, but on the other it was a potential gold mine for the problematically inquisitive.
Social distancing measures provided us with the liberty to engage in a huge amount of curiosity and busy bodying, and the app might have fed into that even further. Maybe we’d be able to see if that suspected birthday party one street over had resulted in an explosion of local cases.
I remember downloading it like Gollum happening upon the one ring to rule them all, and then the crashing disappointment when it didn’t glow and flash with nearby cases or, at the very least, notify me about which neighbours had a bit of a cough or had been overdoing it on the visits to SuperValu.
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There’s little that comes close to the rampant snooping brought out in us by social distancing and the drive to flatten the curve (God, remember all that lingo? Shudder). However, a topic that comes very close is planning. Irish people just love a bit of planning drama. Personally, having never sought nor had any dealings with planning permission, I’m a relative newcomer to this field of interest. My nosiness was piqued last year, though, when I discovered you can sign up to Dublin City Council’s MapAlerter system which will fire out weekly planning alerts for your area. Ding ding ding! Jackpot!
I discovered MapAlerter when checking various swimming spots for water quality updates. I had been badly burned by driving all the way to Portmarnock only to be greeted by a red flag and an assertion by a local man that the sea was “teeming with shite”. When signing up for the bathing quality alerts I shrugged and ticked the “planning” box too.
At first, I didn’t even read them. Then one day I clicked in by accident and my eye was immediately caught by “REFUSE PERMISSION” in block capitals. Obviously, I was immediately gripped. It appeared that someone wanted to build a block of flats in their back garden, and that this had been REFUSED. I read on. Vehicular access. Granted. Dropped kerb and dished footpath. Go right ahead. Demolition of a garage to be replaced with two-storey extension. Pending. I even read about a proposal for work on one of the platforms at Heuston Station, a protected structure. Who knew?! I was practically vibrating.
Here in Ireland, we’re obsessed with property and property ownership, so it follows that property and planning drama will grab our interest. It’s always nicer when you’re not directly involved, of course. Nobody wants to be getting into a feud with the couple next door over whether their proposed new extension will block all natural light and create a nuclear winter scenario in the back garden.
[ Tweaking rules for judicial reviews will not solve the planning problemOpens in new window ]
In an ideal scenario you’re living in harmonious bliss while, in a housing estate far, far away, people are tearing strips off each other over one’s new bedroom window peeping straight into another’s shower. I can imagine no greater fear than that little white site notice popping up just days after your neighbour’s been out with a measuring tape and a guy with a clipboard.
Planning laws in Ireland are generally regarded as nightmarish, and decisions either way are often viewed as baffling. Despite my nosy glee, I wouldn’t wish a planning nightmare on almost anyone. Still, though, we love to settle in with the details of a delicious drama that doesn’t affect the majority of us and our living situations. Just don’t ever move in anywhere with space for an essential railway line in the back garden, and you’ll be solid.
