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

storyp1> BALLYHEALY, Ireland, Oct 18 (Reuters) A senior Irish couple worry they are lacking time to conserve their household home as speeding up coastal disintegration brings the sea ever closer to their front door.

Willie and Lal Pierce have photos from around thirty years earlier, revealing 2 fields separating their conventional white-walled home from what was then a golden beach.

Today, the waves smash up against rocks that Willie has piled up a couple of lawns away from the garden wall on southeast Ireland's Ballyhealy shoreline.

The local council has said it can't conserve your house that has actually been in the household 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 do not live there full-time. But up until just recently they and their loved ones utilized your home where Willie matured for vacations. Lal remembers how shortly after they got married, she used to check out books by the big dune down from your house. Now they are bracing for the worst.

Coastal disintegration has constantly occurred. But Teacher Conor Murphy of Maynooth University, who has actually performed research study on neighboring parts of the coast, said there had actually been a notable boost in the rate over the previous decades.

Unpicking this is intricate but climate modification is most likely to be contributing, and in various methods, he included.

Research study by the university's climate research study centre shows water level in the area have actually risen 20cm (8 inches) because the 19th century.

The greater sea levels imply storm rises increase the rate of erosion in places like the surrounding county of Wexford, among the most susceptible parts of Ireland due its soft sediment coast, Murphy says.

It was really fast. We were really shocked when it took place, said Lal Pierce as she reflected to how her home had altered.

We 'd be fretted about everything the time.


(source: Reuters)