{"id":293521,"date":"2026-02-12T04:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T04:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/293521\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T04:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T04:01:08","slug":"warning-over-highly-toxic-plant-on-bettystown-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/293521\/","title":{"rendered":"Warning over ‘highly toxic’ plant on Bettystown Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

The public is being warned to be vigilant after reported sightings of a highly toxic plant on Bettystown Beach in Co Meath.<\/p>\n

Meath County Council said that there have been possible sightings of Hemlock Water Dropwort washed up on the beach.<\/p>\n

It said the roots of this plant are described as looking like parsnips, but that they are highly toxic.<\/p>\n

The public has been warned not to touch anything that looks like a parsnip shaped root on the beach, to keep children and pets away, and to contact Meath County Council.<\/p>\n

\"A
\nThe highly toxic roots of the plant are described as looking like parsnips (Pic: Max Cody, Four Shore Adventures)<\/p>\n

It warned that brushing against the plant could irritate the skin and that ingesting it could be “severely dangerous” for people and animals.<\/p>\n

Local man Max Cody said he spotted the plant while out walking on Bettystown beach on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

He runs an outdoor adventure business and also works in a forest school teaching children about plants.<\/p>\n

“I was just walking on the beach, and it caught my eye because I hadn’t seen it before on the beach. I’m there every day and I always go out after storms and high tides to see what washes up,” he said.<\/p>\n

After analysing the plant, Max posted about it on a local Facebook group to alert the community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The public is being warned to be vigilant after reported sightings of a highly toxic plant on Bettystown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-293521","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}