Unfortunately, you cannot cross the footbridge, which was built by Coillte, the forestry service, with public money. It is only a 12-minute walk from the footbridge to the public road, along an ancient walkway known as Lambe's Lane. But as of a fortnight ago, you cannot use this route to cross the Glencree valley anymore, and instead must walk round the valley on the public road.

The reason for this is that, between the footbridge and Lambe's Lane, the route diagonally crosses a field belonging to Neil Collen. Last Monday week, in the High Court, Mr Justice Sean O'Leary upheld Collen's appeal against a Circuit Court ruling which had found in favour of the Enniskerry Walkers' Association. The High Court found that this route was not a right of way and never had been.

You cannot see Collen's house at all from the footbridge, which sit about 400 metres away. Nor, local people say, can you see the house from the disputed field either.

Ironically for Collen, the pine forest on the bank opposite his house has recently been cleared and, on the way through the Coillte land to the footbridge, the large modern house is presented to you on a curve of the river, naked except for a high wire fence around its perimeter.

In court, the Enniskerry Walkers' Association called 15 witnesses, including some local farmers. "So it wasn't Goretex-wearing leisure types, " as one of them put it.

One lady told of how, as a child many years previously, she had used this shortcut on her way to school.

Lambe's Lane itself is very old, appearing on the first maps of the Glencree valley.

This footbridge is much newer. When Lyle Collen, Neil Collen's father, first built his house on this site, back in the late 1970s, he blocked off the existing footbridge. Local people protested and Collen Senior agreed with the forestry service that the bridge should be moved. This agreement was seen by the Circuit Court as effectively granting right of way. The Circuit Court judge, Bryan MacMahon, came down here and walked the route. The High Court has now overturned this verdict. Costs have yet to be awarded, but costs will not be a problem for Collen who is a wealthy businessman.

Malcolm Thompson, president of the Irish Cattle and Sheep farmers Association (ICSA), welcomed the judgement as "a landmark case for farmers. It is certainly an inspiration to those challenged in the past by spurious claims of right of way. It works in farmers' favour . . . it makes clear that they have the same right and title to their land as those people who live in Dublin 4."

One of the local TDs for the area, Labour's Liz McManus, told the Sunday Tribune: "This decision is a blow to hill walkers across the country. Rights of way and commonage are coming under pressure . . . particularly from developers."

Ireland is now more highly populated than it has been for a hundred years. Walking is an increasingly popular pastime. Farming is changing . . . hundreds of people leave the industry each year. Land is becoming more valuable.

"An ordinary farm here in Laois was sold recently for 63,500 per acre, " says Ciara Feehely of the ICSA. "And it was only an oul' dairy farm out the back roads. But if you pay that type of money, surely you're entitled to protect it."

In a country fond of litigation, where privacy and money are the twin national obsessions, it is hard to hold the middle ground. Helen Lawless, access and conservation officer of the Irish Mountaineering Association . . . who is herself from Wexford and still lives in a rural area . . . has grown increasingly worried about the urbanrural divide in Ireland. "I've been walking and mountaineering in Ireland for 20 years and I could not have done that without the goodwill of farmers. That's been compromised somewhat in recent years."

Lawless feels that the shift to part-time farming has had its own impact. "Farmers have less time to be repairing fences. They move livestock at weekends, so if a walker parks across a gate, it's very difficult for them, " she says.

Away from the courts, Lawless and the ICSA's Thompson are both on Comhairle na Tuaithe, set up by the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs to come up with a Countryside Recreation Strategy. For two years, Comhairle na Tuaithe's unenviable task has been to reach a negotiated settlement between all interested parties. A document is expected to be presented to the minister, Eamon O Cuiv, within weeks.

However, many feel that it is too late for a negotiated settlement. Ruairi Quinn of the Labour Party is himself a walker and plans to introduce legislation in the Dail this autumn. "One of the reasons we're in this situation is that the Land Acts introduced by Michael Davitt gave absolute rights to landowners. In England and Scotland, some residual rights were retained by the head landlord."

In England, there was a struggle over this issue exactly, access to the countryside, during the Right To Roam campaign in the 1930s. Ireland never had such a campaign, or any modernising legislation. According to Michael Creegan, a landscape consultant who has been advising the Labour party, among others, documents on rights of way and commonage were destroyed during the bombardment of the Four Courts in 1922. So Ireland walked on, in a combination of confusion and lassitude.

"In essence there was no problem until farmers saw people making money out of hill walking, " says Quinn. It is true that many walking books on Ireland have been withdrawn, when landowners saw recommended routes, going over their land, published for the first time. They sued under 'slander of title' and so the books were removed from the public domain.

"And hotels, " agrees Thompson. "Hotels are guilty of publishing maps or brochures and the farmers were not benefiting."

The ICSA at one point proposed that farmers in scenic areas be given the price of a site for a house in recompense for the disturbance caused by what Thompson calls "busloads of walkers".

Then there's insurance.

"I'm proposing that all land above a certain contour line, above the level of agricultural use be indemnified, " says Quinn.

On the question of access to the uplands from the road, he says, "each local authority would identify a certain route . . . an easement, not a right of way. Say a two-metre strip for which there would be a once-off payment and an annual payment."

Behind the interest groups, the gravy-train riders, the developers and the militants, there lies an interesting question: who owns Ireland?

In no other European country is access to the countryside such a burning question; they settled the issue long ago.

In Ireland, for a variety of reasons, it is still a damn mess.