{"id":487110,"date":"2026-06-07T05:13:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T05:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/487110\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T05:13:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T05:13:20","slug":"two-caravans-parked-on-the-curragh-are-attracting-others-to-the-area-court-told-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/487110\/","title":{"rendered":"Two caravans parked on the Curragh are attracting others to the area, court told \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two caravans which have been parked at lands near the Curragh Racecourse in Co Kildare<\/a> are attracting others to do the same thing, the High Court<\/a> heard.<\/p>\n

The Minister for Defence owns the lands on which the caravans are parked and is seeking injunctions preventing trespass.<\/p>\n

The Minister\u2019s barrister, Kelley Smith, told the court on Friday that \u201cwaves of trespassers\u201d had been arriving on the lands since earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Two caravans are owned or occupied by Nicole O\u2019Brien and her husband and have been there for some time, despite the Minister obtaining an interim injunction a year ago against her and a large number of other caravan dwellers who had trespassed on the land. <\/p>\n

The other caravans left the area before a full hearing of the injunction application could take place.<\/p>\n

Smith said it had been decided last year not to proceed any further with the injunction against O\u2019Brien as she was heavily pregnant at the time and had four other children.<\/p>\n

However, it was now the Minister\u2019s position that the presence of O\u2019Brien\u2019s caravans was attracting others to do the same thing and counsel now wanted to proceed with its injunction application against her.<\/p>\n

Reginald Garrett, for O\u2019Brien, who last month told the court the case may involve an issue of discrimination as caravans have parked on these lands for many decades, disputed the claim that his client\u2019s caravans were attracting others. <\/p>\n

He said the two caravans associated with O\u2019Brien were on one side of the Curragh and the others that had arrived recently were on the other side. <\/p>\n

Judge John Jordan set a date next month for the hearing of the case against O\u2019Brien. <\/p>\n

He also granted an order that 28 other individuals, who have recently arrived with caravans, be joined to the injunction proceedings.<\/p>\n

The Minister claims there has been a history over the decades of caravans coming from England or France and parking on the lands over the summer. <\/p>\n

Apart from interference with normal racecourse-related activities and the use of a firing range there by the Defence Forces<\/a>, there was the attendant problem of serious dumping on the lands. This costs tens of thousands to clean up with the bill in 2024 coming in at \u20ac185,000.<\/p>\n

There is also concern that a large number of caravans will turn up to attend a prayer meeting in nearby Monasterevin this month, the Minister said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two caravans which have been parked at lands near the Curragh Racecourse in Co Kildare are attracting others…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[73,61,60,3770,43],"class_list":["post-487110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kildare","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487110","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=487110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}