{"id":356067,"date":"2026-03-20T12:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T12:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/356067\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T12:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T12:09:09","slug":"if-i-had-it-all-to-do-again-id-just-move-into-a-caravan-says-owner-of-meath-house-being-demolished-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/356067\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018If I had it all to do again, I\u2019d just move into a caravan,\u2019 says owner of Meath house being demolished \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

As work resumed on the demolition of her family home at Faughan Hill in Bohermeen, Co Meath<\/a>, on Friday morning, Rose Murray said she and her husband Chris would appear in court on Monday to answer a charge of contempt against them.<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Irish Times, Murray said she accepts the 588sq m (6,220sq ft) home the couple built without planning permission in 2006 will be demolished and says the family will be left with \u201cnothing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Demolition work began on Thursday when the sound of breaking glass could be heard<\/a> from the nearby road as workmen smashed windows in the first stage of the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole crew is back on-site this morning,\u201d she said on Friday.<\/p>\n

\"AA piece of heavy machinery begins work removing a tree from the property. Photograph: Barry Cronin <\/p>\n

She is being kept up to date on the proceedings by family or members of the local community, many of whom have been supportive, she says, with \u201cat least 100\u201d having helped with the removal of the family\u2019s possessions earlier this week. <\/p>\n

She is currently outside of the State for fear of being arrested but declines to say where.<\/p>\n

She says the couple made \u201ca mistake\u201d in building the house without permission, particularly one that was double the size of the one they had applied for planning permission to build. However, she insists their decisions were prompted by frustration over their inability to secure planning permission for a home in the area where her husband grew up.<\/p>\n

It seems, she says, \u201clike there was a personal vendetta against us\u201d.<\/p>\n

She says a prominent local politician and a senior planning official from Meath County Council<\/a> had initially been positive about the couple\u2019s hopes of building on two other sites in the area before they bought the land at Faughan Hill. But planning permission was refused in both instances.<\/p>\n

\"AA security staff member moves fencing across the drive way into the house on Friday. Photograph: Barry Cronin <\/p>\n

In relation to the current site, she says planning was refused on different grounds including the lack of services. Murray says the family had installed a \u201cstate of the art\u201d percolation system in what she described as \u201cthe middle of a nine-acre field\u201d.<\/p>\n

She also claims the couple were told the land had previously been sterilised, a legal commitment given that it could not be built on, but says this process was never completed.<\/p>\n

In 2010, however, Judge John Edwards, in the High Court, told the couple the construction of the house had not been \u201ca technicality\u201d but rather \u201ca flagrant breach\u201d of the planning laws.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0How a dream family home in Co Meath became a 20-year nightmareOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Asked about the persistent legal efforts to thwart the council\u2019s repeated attempts to enforce court orders for the removal of the house, dismissed on one occasion as \u201cfrivolous, vexatious and an abuse of process\u201d, Murray claims they sought to negotiate with the council on reducing the size of the property but were repeatedly rebuffed.<\/p>\n

Now, she says, \u201cit leaves us homeless, on the street. The other night, my family were sleeping in five different houses. They asked my son [the couple have two grown-up sons and one daughter] on Monday, did he have somewhere to stay? <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he told them: \u2018This is my house. This is where I stay\u2019. They offered him a phone number of a bed and breakfast … to stay with the refugees that\u2019s coming into this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

She describes the treatment of the family with regard to securing their possessions from the house as \u201cbarbaric\u201d but acknowledges she and her husband made a mistake building the house.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I had it all to do again, I\u2019d just move into a caravan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As work resumed on the demolition of her family home at Faughan Hill in Bohermeen, Co Meath, on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,73,15949,26685,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-356067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-high-court","tag-meath","tag-meath-county-council","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356067","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=356067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}