> 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 en

> 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. [0] https://www.derryjournal.com/business/pictures-one-most-remote-hotels-coast-donegal-can-be-yours-eu400000-692895 https://www.derryjournal.com/business/pictures-one-most-remo... [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@55.2651726,-8.2261543,64m https://www.google.com/maps/@55.2651726,-8.2261543,64m