This is baffling. It's a good hook to listen to the podcast, but I'm not going to.
My second thought was about insurance. The house is gone, it's up to their investigator to determine the cause. In the worst case, they say, too bad. thanks for the premiums.
My first thought was to build a big ass fence at the property line. Generally be an ass, using my property in the least helpful way possible.
given the dearth of information about the story I'm still a bit befuddled. given the timeframe 1994, it's understandable there isn't much available on the internet. I doubt an island of 120 had a local paper, I doubt even more that the archives would be online. Apparently no records were found for the court case.
There's a temptation to victim blame, there's a temptation to think Presho and Digger cooked up a scheme to get a little attention for the island and Presho's career. I think there's more information, but it seems unattainable.
He won the court case, but got a pittance. There are no answers from the trial.
In the end, I suspect this is a story that will end up much like "where is the other sock" it will vaguely nag at me for a few days, then fall out of mind.
Interesting situation, possibly worth a listen, but clearly no satisfactory resolution is possible (for me anyway). Another fabulously unimportant unanswerable question to irritate my psyche for a few days.
Outsider buys property on tiny island community, then disappears for 8 years. Islander gets annoyed about the vacant property blocking their view so decides to remove it. Other islanders refuse to rat them out due to being a tight community
"Islander gets annoyed about the vacant property blocking their view"
Could well have been a vacant ruin after 8 years without any maintenance - we live in an exposed site half way up a hill in Scotland and I wouldn't leave our house for 8 weeks without arranging for someone to keep and eye on it and potentially getting repairs done.
Moved to Ireland about 5 years ago. The western coast is reputed as being hit by the worst weather and I assume an island in the northwest would be the worst possible place in terms of weather.
Outsider visits island for a few months and enjoys their time there, makes some great friends. Outsider's friend has a hotel, and wants to attract more clients. Outsider has a knack for storytelling, but hasn't been successful for a few years.
Outsider spins yarn, friend fills up his hotel, both walk away happy.
End of mystery.
There are a million ways to fill in the blanks. We can't know _the truth_. I find this upsetting, and it'll bug me for days. but then I'll forget and it's ok.
Your pat story is fine too. I REALLY want to know the truth, which is a fantastic hook. so I'm stuck with this story longer than you are.
Given that he won in court, he was presumably at least able to establish that the house existed at one time, and he owned it, so it’s unlikely to be totally fictitious.
There would be a record in the land registry, with a map.
Even if the house disappeared he would still own the land. Given that it was a very basic house it's likely the land was worth at least as much as the building.
>> Even if the house disappeared he would still own the land. Given that it was a very basic house it's likely the land was worth at least as much as the building.
Don't underestimate the cost of building stuff on an island like that. Everything needs to be brought in by boat, including labor.
For sure. An uncle of mine used to own property on Mackinac Island [1] that he wanted to build a home on. After years of trying to find a way to manage it, he gave up and sold: it was just too far beyond his budget (he is fairly wealthy).
>> Even if the house disappeared he would still own the land.
Not always. So-called Ground Leases are common in many parts. The tenant owns the house but the landlord owns the land and collects rent from the building owner. I'm not clear of exactly what type of ownership rights this person had over the house let alone the underlying property.
Ground leases in Ireland used to be common, but they're transferrable and can generally be converted to freehold for very little money, so they don't have a significant impact on costs. That said, land on Tory Island is presumably ~worthless anyway.
There’s probably some lessons here about good headlines to draw you into a story via social media. Or if you go deeper the value of stories/fiction that were entirely invented in the first place, or documentaries about real things combined with the limitations of an hour and a half plus the biases and editing of the creator, or the podcast medium which lets you go even deeper into a topic, etc.
There’s plenty of angles here in a meta way beyond the sum of the real story itself.
But I do agree this is most likely going to be an unrewarding investment with a likely simple explanation like the hotel wanting views + very old basically vacant building in the way.
This tight community also did have to accept a high loss to the value of their properties as their houses became unsaleable. It is a mystery to me how all property owner would accept this, when only one or two have an improved view.
Places like these are usually populated with people who have lived there their whole lives and plan to spend the rest of their lives there. The cost of the house, to them, isn't a monetary one, it's more a matter of community and sentimental ownership.
Have you had that conversation with many people who are retired in comfortable positions? I've had it with many family members (Apparently I'm the one who is "good with money things"), and they all _do_ care, despite the fact they will never realize that value.
You only care if your kids aren't planning to live there. In small, isolated communities it's common to hand property down (much like farmland) rather than sell.
In those cases the cost of the property is more academic as the real value is the community and any sentimental elements (eg "my grandfather built this"/"5 generations of kids were born in this house", etc)
If you're in the UK, that house is probably
the main way you are going to fund decent care in a care home in the last 5 years or s of life. You'll care
The article mentions that the damages awarded by the judge wouldn't suffice to even buy a chicken coop on the island. My guess is that property prices are quite unaffected by this stunt.
I don't get how you draw the connection between a not satisfying damage award and unaffected house prices.
Maybe the real reason why nobody spoke out was the fact that the guy flattening the house was Tory’s biggest employer. The hotel Óstan Thóraigh has been at the centre of island life since the late 1800s. The hotel and general store was supplying everything from salted fish to marine chandlery to the island.
It even says he got a letter about storm damage. If the roof got messed up in a storm and noone came to fix it in two or three years why not just knock it down.
Usually its a story of continued decline. House has rain water damage (roof caves in), village teenager break into house, one of them sets it on fire.
Ruin ruins next door neighbours view, nobody willing to clean it up, so he does the work for free.
On insurance, most insurers just won’t cover a house that’s left vacant and unmaintained for eight years, certainly not as a normal product. The insurer, if there was one, probably just walked away when they learned of the circumstances.
Here is the high court case, it's a sad story in the end, maybe, his mania probably sent him on this life adventure, it then made it complicated. It's a bigger adventure than most people ever live, who's to say I guess.
I only read the article and not the entire story but what baffles me the most is that Neville claims that the house he left unattended for 8 years disappearing made him so mad he had to go in and out mental health ward several times and collapsed his marriage.
Why would he become so startled(and obsessed) by a house he never visited for 8 years? To the point that a marriage had to collapse, nevertheless.
My guess is that Neville probably had schizophrenia, and thats unique thing about this story;
I've heard a lot of stories of closed rural communities treating newcomer as pests.
As a example from my life, as a teenager I went to help a family-friend that had newly switched to agricultural lifestyle in Japan, over the summer holiday. I remember arriving at the rice field for the first time, noticing that the field was dried up and there was cracks in the soil. I asked the friend if this is how it is supposed to be, and he replied "no, probably some of the old farmers clogged the water channel". I asked why they would do that, and he said that the old farmers here didn't like newcomers, and would in the night go out and sabotage his farm.
I took a look around the farmland, and noticed a rotting hut, rusting tools, and how most of the rice field was now filled with bushes and weed and in no condition of agriculture. I again asked why, and he told me that because the old people can't take care of the land, and because they bully away any newcomer, most of the farmland have been taken back by the nature, pointing to a forest telling me that it used to be farmland. It baffled me how these old people would rather see their entire village, way of life die out than letting any new person in.
Someone that just bought a house and left it unattended 8 years in such community, is to me not surprising at all that someone there took an ire. Maybe Neville just didn't catch that in his documentary about the island, and couldn't process the deeds done to him
The High Court of Ireland's ruling [1], which this article seems to have mined for most of the facts (some of it nearly verbatim) is worth reading, rather than speculating wildly.
In short, the court found that Presho's bipolar disorder likely preceded the disappearance of the house, but that it was a factor in Presho's inability to protect his legal rights at the time.
As far as I interpret the ruling, the sequence of events was roughly:
* Persho left for New Zealand for 8 years, leaving the house boarded up and in the care of a local. During that time, a hotel was constructed next door, and its builder used the house illegally for lodging.
* Around that time, the house fell into disrepair (if you read between the lines, they may also have stripped it for scraps) and suffered serious fire damage (highly likely arson).
* At some unknown point in time, the house was demolished, probably by the owner of the hotel with the help of a local contractor (who was in possession of the only digger on the island) in order to clear the view.
* The local garda did not find any evidence suggesting (or refuting) any criminal acts. However, the court appears to recognize the existence of a conspiracy among the locals.
* When Persho returned in 1994, he responded to erratically to the loss of his house, and due to his bipolar disorder was not able to follow through with legal proceedings until the 2000s.
Yes, I was wondering about that too. Of course without knowing the details, or having listened to the podcast it's easy to come up with quick judgments.
I was thinking that perhaps original film material or personal belongings were lost. Or additionally perhaps the island symbolized something important to him and that the island, or it's inhabitants rejected him in this way hurt more than we can imagine. Or perhaps it was just a lot of money and he and his wife were financially ruined.
I am also reminded of people whose friend or family member goes missing for years and people don't know if the person dead or alive so they can't give it rest, perhaps it's similar. I never lost my house and my belongings, so I wouldn't know. I suppose I would make the best of it and accept the situation and try to move on.
Once I was scammed by a bank for a lot of money, I spent half the amount of money on a lawyer to get justice. I am normally quite stoic, but was quite upset. After a few years the government arranged a (poor) deal I took, this meant closure to me and a lot of people.
> My guess is that Neville probably had schizophrenia, and thats unique thing about this story; I've heard a lot of stories of closed rural communities treating newcomer as pests.
I don't know about schizophrenia, but my guess is that the mental illness had nothing to do with the house, it's just a convenient narrative. Being gaslit about the previous existence of your house certainly wouldn't help though.
> Why would he become so startled(and obsessed) by a house he never visited for 8 years? To the point that a marriage had to collapse, nevertheless.
I'm not sure, but I think I can understand it. A few years ago my girlfriend had her bike stolen and for at least a few weeks I would look at almost every bike I saw to see if it was hers. More recently I had my bike stolen and even months later, on holiday hundreds of miles from home, I still look at bikes wondering if I'll see my bike.
These things can hurt you. Do you have any experiences that compare?
I can imagine how the others on the island decided on that course of action. If there's a house decaying for 8 years without anyone visiting, it's not too difficult to assume that nobody will ever return before that house naturally decays. So they just sped up what would happen anyway.
But what I find remarkable is how strong the "don't snitch" spirit was in that community. I mean the deed was obviously done and surely people knew who did what. It almost appears as if most people in that community did not like Neville Presho that much ...
The population on the island was just 120, I can feel it's like the community in Hot Fuzz (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425112/) but less dramatic, it's still a closed community though.
What baffles me is, if you leave a house FOR YEARS, why don't you hire a neighbour for upkeep? I mean every now and then a roof tile must come off in a storm that needs to be refitted, a house that you don't heat in winter starts to rot, etc. pp.
I can actually see that in a moderately short time span of 8 years a lot of decay can happen naturally after which 'hands-on' neighbours might have just not felt too bad to tear down the remains.
I think the problem there is that the local council decided to notify him about some damage to the house with a letter - so someone on the island isn't "in" on the whole conspiracy, otherwise, why even send him a letter. Or indeed, why not send a letter saying "yep, there's been a fire, we tried saving it but the house is gone".
That’d be Donegal County Council; the island doesn’t have its own one. Unlikely that the council had someone on the island; someone probably made a complaint about a derelict building to them.
To my reading the house was destroyed in “mysterious” fire, and then demolished for use as a car park by the adjacent hotel. The court ruled that the hotel owner must pay replacement cost for the house.
I was wondering... why does a hotel, on an island, need a carpark?
I checked it on Google and it looks like the house was near the pier so it makes sense that residents might park their cars there to head to the mainland.
Reading the story carefully it seems that the photograph was taken before a digger totally removed the ruins of the house, which had been burnt down in the arson attack that preceded its total demolition and removal.
That seems to be right, but your parent's point still stands — the house may have burned down during an eight year absence, but it really doesn't seem to have "vanished". The title and lead into the story have been heavily sensationalized for click purposes.
My thinking is he was unreachable for 8 years, house burned down (for whatever reason) and became a dangerous eyesore, so they took it down.
The islanders faced with his reappearance decided not to incriminate anyone and keep quiet.
The only question I have is how did it burn down? I imagine it was in quite a state of disrepair after almost a decade of low to no maintenance. Part of it may have been falling down already and the islanders may have assumed he'd simply abandoned his house and the island.
Maybe the real reason why nobody spoke out was the fact that the guy flattening the house was Tory’s biggest employer. The hotel Óstan Thóraigh has been at the centre of island life since the late 1800s. The hotel and general store was supplying everything from salted fish to marine chandlery to the island.
“It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”
Non-story: individuals in a community will tolerate unjust behaviour of their community as a whole provided they are not affected. Communities pretend to recognise rights of others out of principle, but in reality 'rights' are only actually recognised to the extent that 1) you can defend them; or 2) there is an impartial body who (mostly) enforces them; or 3) there is no advantage to be gained from overriding them. This is a simple story of bullying that is played out in a million different ways every day - it is a difficult thing for victims to cope with. In this instance, the owner of the house has had not only his asset destroyed, but also his dreams of idyllic retirement in a friendly remote village: a hard thing to accept after years of slog to secure it.
I have spent a couple of great weekends on Tory. One special night with the late King of Tory, Patsy Dan, and the local Priest in the hotel bar will live long in the memory. Patsy had his squeeze box and there was plenty of 'craic agus ceol'.
But people on those small islands are a different type altogether.
There's a narrative that I hear often about Corvo island:
Corvo is a small island in the Azores archipelago, which is home to less than 500 habitants.
Every time a police officer, joins the island, it usually has a bit of a tough time, as it tries to write fines and issue warnings to the small population. The small population, not only disregard its orders, but they actually shut them out.
Since there's very few establishments, the police officer, eventually, has to comply with the population.
To be honest, I don't know how much truth there is, in this story, but I don't find it hard to believe.
Would doubling the cost, or more, actually provide double the benefits? At the end of the day it's the police officer who has the duty to protect and serve.
It’s almost impossible to imagine this in light of the “all or nothing” approach American law enforcement has toward its job. Would it really be as simple as ignoring the police that would undermine their authority?
it's a question of scale. in a small town of 120, yes, absolutely. In a city of a million, it's hard to get everyone to hold the line. A few fall, which causes more to lose their nerve, and more fall, and authority is enforced.
but a group of say 500? that know each other on sight? Sure.
I grew up in a small town in the US southwest. There's a reason Texas has successful defenses for murder that were "he needed killing". It can be terrifying to be on the wrong side of a popularity contest.
It only works with a lone police officer. It's extremely hard to cope with being totally socially excluded on a remote island. Any situation where the police themselves can form a community because there's enough of them, this approach won't work.
(I would note that one of the great American novels, To Kill A Mockingbird, deals precisely with the loneliness of trying to administer justice without community support)
Then there's horror classic The Wicker Man, about a police officer sent to a remote island to investigate a vanished girl and wall of silence ...
If he bought a house and then left it empty for 8 years when he moved to New Zealand then he has nobody to blame but himself - holiday homes left vacant for 11 months of the year can be a huge blight on a small community, but to leave it empty and unmaintained for 8 years when you move to the other side of the world and then be shocked and upset that it is no longer there is hard to believe.
You can do anything with your own house as long as it is legal and you pay your taxes each year. Even not visit your beach house for a while if you don't feel in the mood to do that or are working in a different place, or are being treated in an hospital.
If he has paid the taxes, and was paying insurance, and water and electricity bills each year, the house is not marooned.
The idea of my neighbors being allowed to burn my house, destroy my souvenirs, art and stuff, and use my property as a private parking and say that they can because I'm not here to stop they is returning to law-of-the-jungle. Is horrible and unaceptable.
If the building would be in danger of collapse or refuse to pay taxes the government should fine him first, ask for repairs and/or notify officially its demolition if necessary.
It's not about what is legal and right it's about what is expected. If you left $1000 dollars on top of your car in a parking lot you may have the law on your side but the money is going to disappear.
The destruction came awhile after the building was burnt down - look at the photo, if you owned a hotel, would you want burnt out rubble next door? would you spend time tracking down the owner you haven't seen in 6 years or would you get a friend to knock it down, so it wasn't an eyesore for the community?
Money in the street can't be linked to its owner. A house is regulated and is somebody's property.
> The destruction came awhile after the building was burnt down
If the house was burnt down, then it was an arson crime scenery. Crime scenes -must be- left, 'in its current state', until the investigation ends (or a jury allows to restore it again). Even if it takes some years.
To deliberately destroy proofs of a crime is obstruction of justice, a typified crime, and justice has always priority over touristic activities.
“Usucapio” is still part of the legal system in many countries. Someone who illegally occupies property can become the holder of property rights after a few years if they don’t get kicked out. So I’d say no, it’s usually not safe to leave a house completely unattended for years on end.
The Irish POV is that adverse possession takes 12 years and has other requirements. Being gone for 8 years is not a legal reason in Ireland to destroy someone else's property.
Seriously, WTF? Its his private property. There is legal system last time I checked, and citizens should abide by it. Some mob rules about 'blight on a small community' perfectly ignore that the same fucked up community a) let the house be destroyed by some arrogant a-hole neighbor; b) knew perfectly well who it was; c) lied him & police straight to face, including priest.
These were his childhood friends and 'friendly neighbors'. Because of sea view? That's one fucked up small community.
Defending such behavior takes some serious moral twisting or plain absence to make it look OK.
I'm not condoning the behaviour but neither is it a pathology of a 'fucked up small community'. Welsh nationalists burned down english-owned holiday homes in the 80's and 90's "in response to the housing crisis precipitated by large numbers of houses being bought by wealthy English people for use as holiday homes, pushing up house prices beyond the means of many locals". In total 220 properties were affected [1].
Thirty years later Wales has some coastal villages where more than 50% of the houses are exclusive holiday homes owned by outsiders. The new tactics to try to discourage this - a bit late - are punitive taxation and restrictive covenants on new builds.
I'm not saying that it was right - I'm saying that's what would be expected. Foreigners buying holiday homes have long been hated by small communities - particularly in Ireland and Wales and targets for arson. They can make property too expensive for locals and reduce demand for local businesses. A holiday home would be maintained but leaving a coastal property empty for 8 years it would likely it would also be an eyesore - this wasn't some farmhouse in the middle of nowhere it was 'downtown'.
As with a lot of comments on crime, there is a difference between "explaining" and "exculpating". I agree that "explaining" usually makes it look like the victim's fault.
Not everyone agrees with the system that designate some property as "belonging" to someone (after all, these systems are all artificial, as land transcends human ownership). After all, what gives the "legal system" the right to the land? How was that right established, and at whose consent?
Assholes leaving house without maintenance for 8 years and letting it become eyesore are the reason to have HOA. With HOA owner would have got escalating fines for not keeping up house up to community standards and house would have been foreclosed in a year or so. No need to burn it down.
Look, if you care about what your neighbours house looks like, then go move to some US suburb.
In most rural areas in the world if you don't like what your neighbours house looks like you can go pound sand. People generally like the fact that noone can tell them what they do on their own property.
It could be that the islanders were supportive of the house being destroyed, or it could be that the islanders were scared to snitch on the bully that demolished it?
It doesn't need to be fear, necessarily. They live on an island of 120 people with whoever did it. Like the guy or hate him, they're gonna be seeing him every week from here til the end. Why turn on him for some bloke who doesn't even have a house here anymore?
> Neville Presho is scanning the horizon for the house that he hasn’t seen in eight years. /.../ But there’s a problem. The house isn’t there. It has completely vanished.
Interesting story, but doesn't look like it evaporated into thin air if you look at the photo.
Either I'm missing something, or the intro is very badly (and sensationally - silly season!) written, possibly by someone who didn't listen to the actual program.
> Neville and his solicitor commenced civil legal proceedings, alleging that an islander had decided that Neville’s house was blocking his view of the sea... and had decided to get rid of it.
Clearly since the people on the island are human beings they too would hate with a passion anyone who did this.
So, there's a huge part of the story missing.
No one wants to lose property rights either. If you leave the island, people might destroy your stuff would scare anyone.
Property rights do not exist in nature, they are just stories people tell each other. A house is just a pile of bricks. There is no objective concept of ownership.
Ownership only appears when people tell each other consistent stories, and it becomes a social norm in some society that if you follow some rituals then you can do things like having a say on how a particular pile of bricks is used that others may respect.
On occasion, different people will tell different stories about things and there will be disagreement. Here it seems the islanders do not consider such an outsider can "buy" and "own" a house according to the law and rituals of the mainland. The mainland is like a colonial power they resist. They just have they own laws in effect, that they can enforce (to a degree, someone still got a fine) through the community united in not collaborating with mainland agents. It's neat.
Social norms vary, and elevating your norms above everyone else's is very ugly indeed. The islanders are as human as you, they just have a moral code that's not the same as yours.
By that token, there is no life and just a collection of specifically arranged atoms. There is no murder, just metabolism alterations by a third party.
You're certainly right about murder. You wouldn't say that a cat "murdered" a mouse, you would say a cat killed a mouse. Just as when a dog has a bone, you wouldn't say the dog "owned" the bone. There's a difference between material reality (such as life, killing, and physical possession) and the moral framework you attach to it (like murder and ownership.)
Ownership is something a government does for you, and encompasses whatever arbitrary rules that government imposes and is willing to enforce. That's why this is a discussion about what courts should do.
I would say a cat murdered a mouse, in particular because cats seem to kill a lot of small animals for no practical reason (as opposed to hunger, for example).
If you're suggesting there's a valid moral code where murder is ok (for humans), well, I guess that's a matter of opinion, but I expect many people will disagree with you.
The law is just an agreement with a large group of people that says "don't do anything bad and we'll watch out for you". These people have just replaced that with their own informal arrangement.
They probably prefer their got-your-back arrangement because they trust their neighbours more than they trust people outside the community. In addition it tips the scales in their favour because their law doesn't need to protect everyone equally. In this case outsiders are not afforded the same benefits as islanders.
They just need a reasonable belief that they won't be steamrolled by the actual law, which comes from having a tight knit community where people don't run to the police.
You see the same pattern amongst cops, the mob, remote communities, etc.
> Clearly since the people on the island are human beings they too would hate with a passion anyone who did this.
Other way round: since they're human beings they have loyalty among each other, and a relationship structure they're unwilling to compromise. Destroying the house of a resident obviously wouldn't stand, but who's going to be a snitch for the benefit of the outsider?
This happens a lot in abuse situations. You will find out afterwards that a lot of people knew to some extent what was happening, but were unwilling to have the confrontation that would result from speaking out about it, or to put up with the long term social consequences of being the person who spoke up.
> but who's going to be a snitch for the benefit of the outsider?
I would, but I also have something of an antagonistic streak and a finely tuned sense of justice. I imagine there are many people out there, even in a small community of 120, who would have no problem sticking it to the establishment out of spite. It doesn’t take a big community to sow a faction of dissidents.
He seemed to think 54 thousand pounds wouldn’t pay for a “chicken coop” on that island so maybe it’s a bit more pricey there than one might suspect? From my understanding island life can be a pretty expensive proposition all around.
The house was probably virtually worthless, in that no-one would want to buy it, but on the other hand 60k euro certainly wouldn’t replace it. Build costs in Ireland are in the 100-200euro range per sqm at the moment, and that’s before considering that it’s an _island_.
Elsewhere in the comments it says the judge awarded 48k eur based on the owners own valuation at 60k eur. And the hotel next door is now for sale for 400k. So maybe that’s the actual value of that house after all.
The guy was from Northern Ireland (where the “civil war” you are taking about was happening) and bought a house in Ireland (where it wasn’t). Also comparing NI during The Troubles to Iraq is a bit of a stretch.
> He says he bears no ill-will towards the islanders and feels he has forgiven those he believes wronged him.
Good for him, this is spiritually healthy. But if this happened to me, and I knew exactly who it was, and justice would fail me, I'm pretty certain I'd choose a very different path.
I don't think you have to be a Christian to subscribe to the thought that the idea of "turning the other cheek" - as unintuitive as it may seem - is more healthy in the long run than "an eye for an eye".
> I don't think you have to be a Christian to subscribe to the thought that the idea of "turning the other cheek" ...
The concept, phrase and idiom has its origin in the Sermon on the Mount in Chapter 5 of the Gospel of Matthew, a sermon ostensibly given by a Cynic and rebel Jew between 28AD-33AD, neatly proving your suspicion correct.
Liberal, democratic governments are supposed to maintain our various social contracts by dint of a granted monopoly on the use of violence or force. Laws and justice systems are there as tools for governments to exercise justified and escalating force to elicit compliance with social contracts, e.g. social order.
When enforcement fails, the social contract is broken, and an individual may find that they are left with no better course of action than to exercise the force that was inappropriately withheld.
This guy could be justified in disappearing those who disappeared his house, if left with no better recourse and his property remains under threat. Basic tit for tat game theory overrides morality when social order breaks down.
It’s a small island. Those have always been beyond the pale; it’s not like there was ever a golden age of effective law enforcement on small remote islands.
And no, murder is not an appropriate response to someone demolishing a house, bloody hell.
> This guy could be justified in disappearing those who disappeared his house, if left with no better recourse and his property remains under threat. Basic tit for tat game theory overrides morality when social order breaks down.
Disappearing their house, surely? Not them personally.
You act like this is the first time you’ve heard of a crime taking place and the authorities are unable to prosecute the offenders. It’s not the decline of private property rights and the end of modern western civilization.
I do not understand why people downvoted this. Its the correct approach - giving the monopoly on violence to the state depends upon the state doing its job well.
He left the house apparently unattended for 8 years on an island of 120 people... not really surprising that someone would burn it down because they didn't like the sight of it.
I'd argue that it is very surprising that someone would wreck a house simply because they wanted a better view. What to me is surprising was that nobody bothered to contact the owner of the house, and that everyone responded that it was some mysterious act of god (a whirlwind or "a strange glow in the night sky") instead of just confessing the real reason. Remote communities can be weirdly insular and hostile to outsiders. We moved from a city to a village when I was 7 years old, I was still considered an outsider and treated with suspicion when I (gladly) moved to the capital for university aged 17 and never looked back.
Edit: he was contacted but it wasn't particularly honest :)
> nobody bothered to contact the owner of the house
Did they mention anything about this one way or the other? Maybe they didn't know who the owner was or how to get a hold of him? Or maybe they did try to contact but didn't get a response? Unless I missed some part of the passage.
> The reason Neville had returned to the island in the first place was a letter from the local council warning this house had been damaged by a storm, but an engineer’s report found that the house was most likely brought down by mechanical means.
So he was contacted, by the local council, and they lied to him.
Sounds to me like the island as a whole decided he wasn't going to come live in his house anymore and it was in the way, but they had to keep that secret of course.
> The reason Neville had returned to the island in the first place was a letter from the local council warning this house had been damaged by a storm, but an engineer’s report found that the house was most likely brought down by mechanical means.
There's a high chance both are true. 8 years left untended on a very weather-exposed coast - I'm a little further down the same coast, and I can only imagine the state it'd be in.
I don't want this to sound like victim-blaming, but perhaps trying to imagine how things would progress to a point where anyone thought demolishing it was the right thing to do. Imagine getting your neighbours car towed off their own property simply because you don't like it - I think that's what most of us are picturing. Now imagine it's a rusting shell sat on four rotting, flat tyres. Perhaps burnt out, perhaps a few windows missing, perhaps bits of roof missing - we do get the odd hurricane. This is not an unrealistic picture of a house that's been left to weather the full fury of the Atlantic for 8 years. All it takes is to lose a bit of roof or a bit of glass, and the damage will snowball quickly.
I'm not saying the owner deserved it. But there's a good possibility the house itself deserved it. And part of the self-reliance of isolated islands is that the community as a whole tends to take care of what needs to be done. I dare say if he'd been resident they would have banded together to help with repairs - that tight-knit community goes both ways.
Based on being the only hotel on the island, this[0] appears to be the hotel in question. I read the space the house was in was being used as parking for the hotel, and the buildings either side of it don't look new - so I'm assuming the space is the turn-around between the hotel and the shore. You can see[1] it's a very prominent place in 'town' to be left dilapidated. Again, not trying to excuse anyone, but just trying to wrap my head around their motivations.
Someone complained to the local authority about a derelict building, a civil servant said “okay, yeah, whatever”, sent a letter to the owner, and got on with their life. The council would have no context on the situation beyond what they were told.
I assumed the remote island would have its own council and everybody involved would know each other and the context, but apparently the island is part of County Donegal, which is much larger, and you are completely correct.
Nah. It probably would in the UK (where they have civil parish councils, a sort of retirement home for weird busybodies), but in Ireland the smallest type of local authority is a city/county council. Donegal CC has to deal with 160,000 people and probably only gives limited attention to evidently insane islanders.
Well, he did buy the house (article says) not built it, so the sight of the house probably was there already for years if not for decades.
They most probably didn't like that the house was bought by outsider.
Nowadays you can just rent a Chinese military satellite for the few minutes that it'll be above your house. You'd be surprised at their resolution ;)
Of course, there's also publicly available US offerings like
"SecureWatch® is the premier cloud-based subscription service for secure and timely access to Earth Intelligence, simplifying your ability to map, monitor and detect change for any location on the globe at a moment’s notice."
EDIT: Found the price info for satellite rental again. $6300 per 30 seconds at 15cm per pixel resolution.
I can't imagine a surveillance system is going to be functional for 8 years without someone doing maintenance. Sounds like the guy abandoned the house.
My second thought was about insurance. The house is gone, it's up to their investigator to determine the cause. In the worst case, they say, too bad. thanks for the premiums.
My first thought was to build a big ass fence at the property line. Generally be an ass, using my property in the least helpful way possible.
given the dearth of information about the story I'm still a bit befuddled. given the timeframe 1994, it's understandable there isn't much available on the internet. I doubt an island of 120 had a local paper, I doubt even more that the archives would be online. Apparently no records were found for the court case.
There's a temptation to victim blame, there's a temptation to think Presho and Digger cooked up a scheme to get a little attention for the island and Presho's career. I think there's more information, but it seems unattainable.
He won the court case, but got a pittance. There are no answers from the trial.
In the end, I suspect this is a story that will end up much like "where is the other sock" it will vaguely nag at me for a few days, then fall out of mind.
Interesting situation, possibly worth a listen, but clearly no satisfactory resolution is possible (for me anyway). Another fabulously unimportant unanswerable question to irritate my psyche for a few days.