05.30.06
Posted in News at 1:18 am by johnk
Protests over plan to route four-lane motorway through historic sites Proposed route of M3
Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent
Tuesday May 30, 2006
The Guardian
The panoramic view from the Hill of Tara reputedly encompasses half the counties of Ireland. Windswept, grass ramparts enclose the ancient seat of the country’s High Kings. Nearby stands the Mound of the Hostages, a megalithic passage tomb.
Soon a four-lane motorway, speeding traffic in and out of Dublin, will bulldoze its way through the landscape below the Iron Age earthworks. The first scars are already visible as archaeologists investigate the lush Gowra valley for the remains of a civilisation whose monuments pre-date many Egyptian pyramids. Unless survey teams uncover a new site of “national archaeological importance”, the controversial, government-backed route through County Meath is likely to go ahead.
The row over construction of the M3 has set Ireland’s marginalised, heritage lobby at odds with the republic’s newfound prosperity and the drive to upgrade its outdated infrastructure. It has also highlighted Ireland’s increasing reliance on the car.
The row is now entering a more embittered phase. Construction of the 36-mile road, connecting Clonee, on Dublin’s congested outskirts, to Kells, north-west of the capital, was scheduled to begin early this month. The national roads authority (NRA) is blaming legal action by environmental protesters for delays costing €1m (£680,000) a week and for the number of fatal car crashes attributable to the unmodernised road.
No date has yet been set for an appeal to the supreme court over the disputed route, and the NRA has cautioned its preferred tenderer, the Eurolink consortium, not to start work until court proceedings are completed. If the case goes to Europe, it could take years.
Vincent Salafia, a Dublin lawyer fighting the Tara M3 case, denied his action had caused delays. He said he could be amenable to “mediation” if “an independent archaeological expert [was] appointed to determine whether the M3 passes through the greater national monument of Tara [or] if any of the 38 sites [already unearthed constitute] national monuments in their own right”. He lost his case in the high court.
“The government is saying the Tara monument is just the tip of the hill,” he told the Guardian. “But there are outer defensive forts which are all part of a large, single [complex]. We want to force [the road] to move further away. A route further out to the west would be better.”
Boom
The issue has rocketed up the domestic political agenda as the economy has boomed and Dublin’s commuter belt has expanded far out into the Irish midlands. Tara is barely 30 miles from the capital but car journeys can take several hours at peak traffic times.
Ireland has not experienced direct action protests against road building but the campaign has attracted celebrity support, notably from the Hollywood actress Charlize Theron and her Irish partner, Stuart Townsend.
Muireann Ni Bhrolochain, a university lecturer in Celtic studies at Maynooth, is one of the leading opponents. “Tara is one of the premier sites in Europe,” she said. “Some of the tombs date back 4,000 years and the hill was used by the High Kings of all Ireland until 1200AD. I’m not anti-roads but we have the opportunity to learn from mistakes in other countries,” she said.
Given the success of single issue candidates in Ireland’s proportional representation system, there has been talk of an anti-M3 candidate at the general election anticipated next year. Several opposition parties, including Sinn Féin and the Green party, have backed the campaign. The Labour party’s environment spokesman, Eamon Gilmore, described the route as a “betrayal of the country’s Celtic heritage that will result in the destruction of the Tara landscape”.
Many question why the existing freight railway line, from nearby Navan via Drogheda to Dublin, has not been improved to relieve congestion.
“The government said it would take until 2015 to [rebuild] the direct line from Navan to Dublin [closed in the 1960s],” said a local campaigner, Proinsas MacFheargus. “But that railway was begun in 1859 and finished in 1862. So nowadays it would take three times as long to build? They won’t open up the line because it would conflict with the motorway’s tolling arrangements.”
Julitta Clancy, of the Meath Historical Society, did not join the legal action because the costs would have put her at risk of losing her home. “We went through the planning process and found it very frustrating,” she said. “There was no remedy. We tried to persuade the government that the road could be moved, producing a better transport and heritage solution. We have petitioned the European parliament on the rights of litigants to oppose infrastructure projects. The delays to the road are not due to us but to the fact that the route picked was rich in archaeology. These sites are part of our European collective memory. We have asked for independent monitoring of the excavations. At present if they find anything in the valley … it’s the NRA that decides whether it’s a national monument.”
The M3 will also slice through Dalgan Park, headquarters of the St Columban Missionaries in the Gowra valley. The estate’s woodland and riverside walks are open to the public.
“This road will be a violation of the sacredness and tranquility of the area,” said Father Pat Raleigh. “This was given in trust to us by the people of Ireland. People are not going to enjoy a greater quality of life commuting to Dublin.”
Last year 400 people died on the republic’s roads, about 100 deaths per million people. That rate is close to the European average. The litany of casualties, however, fills the daily papers. Last week the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, joined the controversy, complaining that protests meant that “not a thistle has yet been cut” on the motorway. In the meantime, he added, existing roads were still proving deadly. “Nine people have died in the past nine months.”
Saving lives
An NRA spokesman also accused protesters of endangering the public.”The sooner we have a modern motorway the sooner we will start saving lives,” he insisted. “Motorways, because of the traffic separation, are much safer. Construction was due to start at the beginning of May … but we have to wait until all the legal challenges have been exhausted.
“We are not going through or over the Hill of Tara. The M3 has taken into account the historical significance of the area. It was known from the outset. There were two years of public reviews. More than 2,000 issues were addressed. We have tried to minimise the visual impact. The local community supports [us] and wants the M3 to be built.”
Backstory
The oldest excavated monument is the Mound of the Hostages, constructed in 2500BC. Its name derives from Niall of the Nine Hostages, a king who held prisoners from every province of Ireland as well as from Britain and Europe. Legend has it that candidates for the high kingship had to drive their chariots towards two standing stones positioned close together which opened only for the rightful king. In historic times, Tara was the seat of power in Ireland; 142 High Kings reigned from the hilltop that was revered as a sacred place with a direct connection to the underworld. St Patrick visited the hill in 433AD to convert the pagan king. One interpretation of “Tara” says it means “place of great prospect”. An Israeli archaeological team excavated the hill in the 20th century, convinced the Arc of the Covenant was buried under the soil of County Meath.
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05.24.06
Posted in News at 10:12 pm by johnk
May 24 2006
By Stephen Nesse
Irish politician Dick Roche is in the business of government, and his two-decades-long career has touched on public administration, finance, transportation and economic planning and development.
The Hill of Tara and the surrounding area in County Meath, northwest of Dublin, harbors so many prehistoric, Celtic and Roman remains that it has been called “the heart and soul of Ireland.” Now, despite vehement protests, a four-lane highway is slated to bisect the area.
Unfortunately, he has little or no professional knowledge of environment, anthropology, archaeology or history — or if he does, he has kept it off his Web site and well hidden from the public.
Nevertheless, in September 2004 Roche was appointed Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, and now has “sole discretion in deciding whether any archaeological site is a national monument and what to do with it — including authorising its demolition,” according to Frank McDonald, Environment Editor of the
Irish Times, writing in a March 2006 article.
And authorizing demolition is exactly what Roche has done. Not just one or two historical sites, but demolition on a grand scale: a 60-km, four-lane motorway that will condemn 700 hectares of land to development, including at least 156 known archaeological sites ranging from burial sites and buildings to settlements.
The motorway, known as the M3, is projected to run between Clonee and Kells and will supplement the N3, a two-lane road that runs through County Meath, just northwest of Dublin. Inevitably the M3 will also bring increased traffic, mounting air pollution, urban sprawl — and even more development.
Despite it being one of the wonders of the prehistoric world, visitors to Stonehenge in southwest England must contend with constant disturbance from a nearby major road, such as may soon be the case with the Hill of Tara in Ireland.
Experts are certain that many more archeological sites will surface as well, but the greatest tragedy is that the M3 will carve through the lush green fields that sweep up to the Hill of Tara, bisecting and degrading an ancient valley rich in unique sites of historical and cultural significance.
The Hill of Tara, also known as the Hill of Kings, is a long, low hill that rises between the towns of Navan and Dunshaughlin, southwest of the River Boyne. At the top the hill is a large ringfort of mounded earth that encircles two more ringforts, one of which surrounds a meter-high, phallic standing stone, the Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny. It is here that the High Kings of Ireland were crowned.
Ancient Celtic festivals
Just north of the ringforts is the Mound of Hostages, a Neolithic tomb constructed more than 4,000 years ago, which contains a passageway that is astrologically aligned with the sunset on November 8 and February 4, the ancient Celtic festivals of Samhain and Imbolc. Not far away, excavations have turned up Roman artifacts.
In short, Tara and its surroundings conceal a trove of archaeological treasures that link present-day Ireland and Europe with some of the earliest of ancient traditions and peoples. To have a hand in degrading an area of such unique heritage is truly barbarian.
“The Hill of Tara constitutes the heart and soul of Ireland. Our ceremonial and mythical capital, its very name invokes the spirit and mystique of our people,” 30 academics wrote in a letter of protest to the editor of the Irish Times in February 2004.
“[The] recent approval of the government’s scheme to divide the Tara/Skryne valley with the M3 motorway spells out a massive national and international tragedy that must be averted. This narrow valley is one of the most culturally and archaeologically significant places in the world. Many monuments predate the Egyptian pyramids.
“The Hill of Tara has been a sanctuary for every generation since. It is precisely because it has remained intact, unlike many comparable continental sites, that it holds a special key to understanding the continuous progression of European civilization. We are only just
beginning to understand and appreciate how the Mound relates to the hundreds of other monuments in this archaeological complex — many of which will be destroyed if the valley is sliced in two,” the academics warned.
I admit that when I first heard about the M3 from an Irish colleague, all I knew of Tara was its American movie namesake, the ill-fated plantation in “Gone with the Wind.” Not wanting to remain too terribly ignorant I got busy googling.
An op-ed piece, “A Road Runs Through Tara,” that appeared in the New York Times (April 25, 2005) is particularly poignant about the planned highway. The writer, Colm Toibin, is the author of “The Master,” and he states the case for Tara in measured, thoughtful terms:
“The beauty and isolation of the valley, which has Tara on one side and Skryne, another historical site of some importance, on the other, will effectively be destroyed. A place of myth and mystery will look like anywhere. It is called modernization.
“For commuters who drive each day to work in Dublin from towns and villages in County Meath, where Tara lies, it might cut 20 minutes off the journey. It will make them happy. But it seems almost beyond belief that Ireland, awash with new money and enormous economic confidence, cannot find another route for the road and leave for generations to
come a heritage that has been left to us,” writes Toibin.
Judging from the debate now raging in Ireland over construction of the M3, one might imagine that a highway is essential. The truth is that there are viable alternatives, but these have been given short shrift by politicians and bureaucrats eager, as ever, to build yet another road.
(I’m beginning to wonder whether this is a genetic flaw in those aspiring to public service worldwide: the need to crisscross the countryside with highways, leaving a matrix of concrete that says, “See, even from behind my desk I really did do something monumental!”)
Since traffic along the N3 in County Meath is dominated by commuters and commercial transport, the most practical and energy-efficient solution, and the least destructive, would be rail service combined with upgraded existing roads and a bus network.
Nevertheless, the debate has focused on road-building and on one route in particular. The authorities have made a great show of their efforts to consider various routes — 10 options in all, but the more one learns about the preliminary assessment process, the more it appears that the authorities chose the route first and now are taking great
pains to justify a patently bad decision.
Protest petition
Because my colleague, an Irish scholar, signed a petition protesting the route selected for the M3, the National Roads Authority (NRA) of Ireland sent him an “information pack on the archaeological aspects of the M3.” The accompanying letter states, “This is the first time the Authority in co-operation with a local authority have produced such a
document. It is hoped that in the future similar information packs will be produced for other road schemes.”
Having seen numerous impact assessments over the years, my suggestion is that the NRA should not attempt similar packs — not if this is the best they can do. Even a cursory look through the information raises more questions than it answers about how and why such a destructive route was chosen.
The NRA information pack even contains a DVD that offers a digitalized view of the landscape around Tara before and after the construction of the M3. Not surprisingly the view from atop Tara remains exactly the same (!) — so don’t worry your pretty heads, dear taxpayers; all is well.
However, one source close to the controversy says the digitalized view is “doctored” and not from the highest point, as is claimed by the narrator of the DVD.
More importantly, what the DVD and information pack completely fail to render is all of the related degradation that will accompany the construction of a major road and impact on the region and its invaluable archaeological heritage: air pollution, noise pollution,
towering lamps floodlighting a major intersection just north of Tara, and the inevitable glut of light industry and warehouses that are attracted to highways and their intersections.
Reading the NRA assurances in light of the concerns expressed by those opposed to the construction, one is left with a distinctly troubling impression that the Irish government, led in this regard by Minister Roche and his colleagues, is attempting to slip a tragic and costly boondoggle past the public using a clumsy mixture of polish, bluster
and intimidation.
In fact, a recent nationwide survey conducted by Red C Research & Marketing Ltd. found that 2 out of 3 people in Ireland oppose the motorway going through the Tara/Skryne Valley. The findings of the survey are equivalent to the outcome of a referendum vote — if one were held, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent, according
to a source familiar with the Red C results. Red C is an independent market research company based in Dublin.
Looking through the NRA information pack with my colleague, he mused that even the archaeologists in the photos appear embarrassed by the travesty being perpetrated on the Irish and their land: In each photo their faces are averted from the camera as they go about the dirty business of selling out Ireland’s history and mystery to the whims of a
few public servants greedily intent on serving their own, not the public’s, interests.
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