Removing or replacing the existing thatch with anything but the same material (oaten straw) is highly illegal and could land me in jail.
Of course, heritage's stubbornness is also why my own county lost 40% of thatched buildings in the last 20 years and will probably lose them all in the next 20.
In some cases buildings are worth literally less than nothing (the land would be worth more without them) because heritage is naive enough to think some rich eccentric wants to plow millions of Euro in to fixing some dump in the middle of nowhere.
The land would be worth more if the building were demolished (and it had planning permission to build homes). But heritage officers won't allow that, so nature will demolish slowly (and make the town ever uglier in the process) and THEN in 30 years or so it will finally be demolished.
? Ireland remains in the EU. And it's common to have stricter rules for historical buildings (fair enough, my cottage is over 200 years old) but normally it comes with provisions for supporting maintenance, insurance, etc. Ireland just half-asses it.
