Coastal erosion eats away at Irish family's 200-year-old home

By Clodagh Kilcoyne

An elderly Irish couple fear they are running out of time to save their family home as accelerating coastal erosion brings the sea ever closer to their front door.

Willie and Lal Pierce have photos from around 30 years ago, showing two fields separating their traditional white-walled cottage from what was then a golden beach.

Today, the waves smash up against rocks that Willie has piled up a few yards away from the garden wall on southeast Ireland's Ballyhealy coastline.

The local council has said it can't help save the house that has been in the family for 200 years. All Willie can think of doing is piling up more rocks. "If I can't do it this year, it will be gone," he said.

The couple don't live there full time. But until recently they and their relatives used the house where Willie grew up for holidays. Lal recalls how shortly after they got married, she used to read books by the large sand dunes down from the house. Now they are bracing for the worst.

Coastal erosion has always happened. But Professor Conor Murphy of Maynooth University, who has carried out research on nearby parts of the coast, said there had been a notable increase in the rate over the past decades.

"Unpicking this is complex but climate change is likely to be playing a role, and in various ways," he added.

Research by the university's climate research centre shows sea levels in the area have risen 20cm (8 inches) since the 19th century.

The higher sea levels mean storm surges increase the rate of erosion in places like the surrounding county of Wexford, one of the most vulnerable parts of Ireland due its soft sediment coast, Murphy says.

"It was very fast. We were very shocked when it happened," said Lal Pierce as she thought back to how her home had changed.

"We'd be worried about it all the time."