“It is not harmless behaviour – it is the premeditated, attempted destruction of a key environmental asset.”
The sun had drawn a few people out to bathe on Balbriggan beach on Thursday afternoon.
A couple of teenagers lay on towels, a family set up a picnic as a young girl built a sandcastle, and behind them, a crow was waddling across a sand dune covered in dead lyme grass.
While the eastern and southern sides of the dunes were surrounded by chestnut fencing, which Fingal County Council erected in September to help the small hills trap sand – now their northern and western sides were blocked off by orange plastic netting.
The council had unspooled the nets earlier in the week, after issuing a statement via Our Balbriggan, its local rejuvenation project, condemning an “alleged unauthorised use of harmful chemicals in wanton attacks” on the grass.
They were investigating the matter and also examining mitigation measures, the post says. “It is not harmless behaviour – it is the premeditated, attempted destruction of a key environmental asset.”
The lyme grass had become a point of controversy over the past three years.
This apparent attack on the grass isn’t the first, said independent Councillor Tony Murphy. “This is about the second time that somebody has taken it upon themselves to go down and spray the marram grass.”
The council says this natural occurrence helps to create dune systems, which protects against erosion. But some locals have led an ongoing campaign demanding its removal and arguing that it spoils the beach’s picturesque “golden sands”.
That debate had evolved though, when the council set up a new committee to facilitate constructive dialogue between local groups on how best to manage the beach moving forward.
A council spokesperson said on Tuesday that it had referred the lyme grass case to An Garda Síochána, but they couldn’t give an update on the case or on any alleged chemicals used. “As it is a live investigation the Council has nothing further to add at this time”
A Garda spokesperson did not comment when asked on Thursday about the investigation.
The lyme grass has been divisive in recent years, said Murphy on Thursday morning. “There has always been a difference of opinion with regard to whether the marram grass should be allowed to grow.”
Historically, the council raked the beach, he said. “It meant then that anything that was growing wouldn’t really be able to stay.”
But in more recent times, the council has switched and now only rakes the beach’s foreshore, he says. “As a consequence of only foreshore raking, the marram grass propagated and self-propagated.”
In September 2023, Balbriggan local Jo Thompson shared a petition saying that a beach once known for its “soft golden” sands has been allowed to disappear under coarse grass that is “uncomfortable to sit on or walk upon.”
The council had refused requests to remove it, Thompson wrote. “No more sand castle building or enjoying the fun of the day at the beach.”
To date, the petition has 442 signatures. It also sprouted a local campaign group known as SOS Save Our Sand.
A spokesperson for the council in October 2023 said the grass was naturally occurring and had not been planted, nor did they have any intentions of removing it as it played a beneficial role in protecting the beach.
The dunes can help to protect the beach from future storm events, they said. “The council is also keen to allow for natural processes such as dune formation to take place, to protect the beach from the effects of coastal erosion and climate change into the future.”
Just north of the beach, a small cliff collapsed during stormy weather in February.
But, Balbriggan beach itself is an area where coastal erosion is “clearly not an issue (presently)”, according to an assessment report on the beach done last December by Kevin Lynch, a lecturer in University of Galway’s School of Geography.
Commissioned by the council, Lynch’s report observed that, “based on limited historical imagery and local knowledge”, any erosion on the beach is counter-balanced by deposition during fair weather conditions.
At the Balbriggan/Rush-Lusk/Swords Area Committee meeting in February, Lynch said that the east coast has experienced a lot of erosion, but the dunes formed by the grass on Balbriggan beach were controlling it here.
“So it actually prevented erosion further back in towards the railway line and back towards the upper part of the beach,” he said.
Lynch, who is also member of a consultancy group called the Dune Futures Agency, said he didn’t want to comment on the current situation.
Lynch’s report recommended that the management of the beach – and settling on the allocation of space, to people and nature – would be best served by a cross-community management committee, which the council had committed to back in June 2025, the assessment says.
Thanks to that committee, the future of the beach had become less heated, with everyone sitting around a table, Murphy said on Thursday. “We had come to the point where we were in that conversation, and then some massive clown decided that he’s going to do his own thing.”
An amenity has been compromised here, Murphy said. “Pets who run around the beach could get sick, and moreover, you have children that are down on the beach.”
On Friday, SOS Save Our Sands posted on social media that they did not support or condone the alleged deliberate damage to the grass. “As a community, we believe that everyone wants the same outcome – a beach that is clean, viable, accessible and enjoyable for everyone.”
The group did however say that they remain strong advocates for the removal of the grass, “which serves no natural purpose”.
They didn’t respond to a query about why they believe the grass has no natural purpose.
According to Lynch’s report, the new dunes are dominated by lyme grass, but there is also a diversity of grasses and flowering species present.
That biodiversity of plant life will be paralleled by a diversity of fauna, he wrote. “These insects and other tiny creatures feed on the living plants, including pollinators, and help to break them down in the decaying process after the plants die.”
Everybody within the beach management group is appalled by what has occurred, Murphy says. “They were working very hard at the stakeholders meeting for the committee to come to a reasonable compromise.”
It was an abhorrent act, he said. “It’s a sad day for Balbriggan and the community to think that somebody thinks that this is a good thing to do.”
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