Roads agency denies damage to
Tara site
By - Frank McDonald, Environment
Editor.
The National Roads Authority (NRA) has denied that
directions by Minister for the Environment Dick Roche to
protect archaeology along the M3 motorway route are being
"openly flouted" by works now under way.
Celtic scholar Dr. Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin,
of the Save Tara campaign, has written to Mr. Roche and
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern complaining that damage had been
done to Rath Lugh, a designated national monument.
"The tree felling and use of heavy digging machinery at
Lismullin and at the base of Rath Lugh - one of Tara's
outlying defensive fortifications - is not being carried
out in accordance with the Minister's directions".
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin said standards of best
archaeological practice were not being observed and that
the directions issued by Mr. Roche in May 2005 regarding
the treatment of archaeological sites "are being openly
flouted".
But Mary Deevy, project archaeologist with the NRA,
insisted that a site in a Save Tara photograph was part
of an esker ridge - "two fields away from Rath Lugh" -
which was used for private small-scale gravel
quarrying.
She had walked from Lismullin to Rath Lugh earlier this
month with Heather King, a senior archaeologist from the
department, "who confirmed that no damage had been done
to archaeological sites" in the area.
Asked if the Minister's directions were being flouted,
Ms. Deevy said: "Absolutely not". She added that the
contractors involved in the work were fully informed on
archaeological sites "and know very well what sites to
avoid".
Mr. Roche had specified that the removal of forestry and
topsoil at Lismullin and Ardsallagh was to be "carried
out under archaeological supervision" and all
construction topsoil stripping was to be archaeologically
monitored.
"There is no archaeological supervision of forestry
clearance at Lismullin", Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin
said. "Neither is there any archaeological monitoring of
large-scale earthmoving from the base of the Rath Lugh
escarpment".
"Such actions completely undermine Rath Lugh and the
assurances given by the Minister in relation to this, one
of our nation's most sensitive archaeological and
historical landscapes", her statement said.
She explained that Rath Lugh "stands as a sentry over the
Gabhra Valley guarding the northern and north-western
approaches to the Hill [of Tara] and overlooks other
nearby recorded archaeological monuments".
Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin said stratified
archaeological sediments were visible in photographs of
damage done to what she claimed was Rath Lugh. "If there
were archaeological supervision such works would have
been brought to a halt".
She also queried why such work had started under cover of
darkness when an archaeologist would be unlikely to see
freshly disturbed archaeological strata.
Although the Minister had said that his directions were
"both comprehensive and onerous" and would "protect
heritage" sites along the M3, Dr. Ní
Bhrolcháin said that his expressed wishes "are
being 'comprehensively' ignored".
© The Irish Times, 16th. January 2007.
