Bulldozing our heritage
The Tara complex has been at the centre of Irish life
since antiquity. There is evidence of ritual gatherings
going back five thousand years and its hill has been
revered and mentioned in all our historical and
mythological literature.
The complex can be best imagined as a sort of shield,
with the hill as the middle hub and with forts,
enclosures, henges and burial places laid out in
concentric circles around it.
Instead of treasuring, protecting and promoting this
complex and against all rational advice from many
experts, the M3 motorway was allowed cut through it and
destroy it forever.
These are the sites which Seamus Heaney links to the dead
generations, they are separate from the hill but part of
its historic complex and within its view.
That the landscape has been ruined forever is without
question. All one has to do is go there and look.
The planners and the promoters of the M3 have never tired
of saying that there were five alternative routes
considered and that in the end the best route was chosen.
However the fact that the widening of the old N3 was
never given any real consideration has been allowed slip
from the argument.
Why was an area that could easily be designated a world
heritage site - thus promoting the spiritual origins of
the Irish race, the aptly named royal county of Meath and
the mythological beginnings of Ireland - destroyed, when
all that was needed to safeguard it was the removal of
less that 30 nondescript, non-historic houses which line
the side of the old N3?
This would have been cheaper than the route chosen, it
would have provided a straight road, secured sites of
immense mythological and spiritual importance and avoided
the flyovers and interchange at Blundelstown, which is
going to be a large and permanent scar on the landscape
and just 1500m from the Hill of Tara.
Fields and Farms were compulsory purchased when they got
in the way, so why not these houses? Would any other
nation of pride allow their past be bulldozed in such a
way?
No, and this is why we protest: this valley belonged to
us and future generations, and as we are now embedded in
Europe it also belongs to them. We as a country have
signed up to protect and promote such sites as our
European duty.
John Farrelly,
Dublin 3.
© Daily Mail, 11th. March 2008.
Related Articles:
Heaney claims motorway near Tara desecrates sacred
landscape.
Interview
with Dr. Jonathan Foyle - World Monument Fund.
(Audio)
