Photo: NUI Galway
Hill of Tara Set for Danger List -New plan to save ancient site from M3 Irish Daily Star – Tue Feb 13 2007
- Tue Feb 13 2007By Cormac Bourke
THE Ancient Hill of Tara has been nominated for inclusion on a list of the world’s 100 most endangered sites.
The World Monuments Watch has helped save 420 irreplaceable sites in 80 countries, including the ancient Buddhist temple of Preah Khan at Angkor, Cambodia, built in 1191.
Environmentalists hope inclusion on the 2008 list will boost their campaign to reroute the M3 away from the ancient County Meath fort, home of the ancient kings.
Work
They claim the site is being threatened by construction of the M3 motorway, ancillary development and neglect.
Vincent Salafia of TaraWatch said the nomination takes the campaign to halt work on the M3 to a new level internationally.
“We are extremely hopeful the Government will think twice before signing the 30-year construction and tolling contract,” he said. “The sustainable alternatives must be reviewed in light of the new data and EU rules on transport carbon emissions and climate change.”
International expert Dr Ron Hicks, of the Department of Anthropology, Ball State University, Indiana endorsed the nomination. A decision on whether to include the Hill of Tara on the list will be made in the summer.
Neglect
A decision on whether to include the Hill of Tara on the endangered sites list will be made in the summer.
Announced every two years the list is compiled to bring international attention to cultural heritage sites around the world threatened by neglect, vandalism, conflict or natural disaster.
The 2006 list included a famine era barn in Co Kildare and Irish explorer Ernest Shackelton’s Expedition Hut on Ross Island, Antartica.
The Ellis Island baggage and Dormitory Building in New York, built to accomodate immigrants trying to get into America in the early 1900s – also made the list.
HILL OF TARA Seat of kings or land of myths? (inset)
- Tara was the ancient seat of power in Ireland from where 142 kings reigned – but not to many, the history of the hill blurs the lines between history and reality. Some believe it was a dwelling place for the ancient gods, others claimed it was an entrance to the ‘Otherworld’.
- A century ago a group of Israelites believed the Ark of the Covenant was buried on the hill. Other dreamers claimed that Tara was the ancient capital of the Lost Kingdom of Atlantis – and Atlantis was Ireland.
- One legend names the Hill of Tara was the capital of the Tuatha de Danann the pre-Celtic dwellers of Ireland. Under the Celts Tara became the place from where the Kings of Ireland ruled with godly status.
- At the summit stood the Stone of Destiny and it was here that the High Kings of Ireland were crowned. Legend says that the stone had to roar three times if the chosen one was a true king.
DailyIndia: Hill of Tara nominated for endangered list
Washington Times: Hill of Tara nominated for endangered list
IRELAND’S SHAME: A SUPERHIGHWAY ACROSS THE HILL OF TARA
By T.S. Kerrigan
American Reporter Correspondent
Los Angeles, California
LOS ANGELES — Just when you thought the Celtic Tiger economy had done it worst, there’s news that the Irish Government – in the name of progress, of course – is implementing a plan to build the M3 freeway through the Hill of Tara, the ancient seat of the high kings of Ireland.
This would seem to be the worst news to befall that lovely site since medieval times, when Irish ecclesiastics, locked in a struggle with the lay authority of the times, put a curse on the place and destroyed all secular power in the land of saints and sages until the coming of Brian Boru.
‘What’s next, a shopping center connecting the Lakes of Killarney? A strip mall in Dingle? Unprincipled people seem to be in charge of Ireland’s cultural future… .’
Will romantic Ireland be “dead and gone,” as poet W.B. Yeats contended, when that location is straddled with a four-lane toll road and a 50-acre interchange? Will this obvious playing to the whims of the Irish motorist result in yet another desecration of the values of the past?
Work has, unfortunately, already begun despite an outcry which has spread beyond the borders of the country. William Harding, Professor of Archeology at Edinburgh University, has claimed that “it is an act of cultural vandalism as flagrant as ripping a knife through a Rembrandt painting.” Government owned forests in Rath Lugh are being systematically decimated as part of the project.
Poorly supervised digging at nearby Baronstown has produced bones in various and random parts of that area, with no attempt to mark or number these finds. At Roestown, a complex of beehive souterrains (Bronze Age condominiums) has been removed by workers, promptinmg its nomination by the respected World Monuments Fund to the lost of 100 Most Endangered Sites.
One of these ancient dwelling spaces in Roestown has been removed to build a superhighway across the revered Hill of Tara, and this one is to be moved.
Photo: Tara Watch
Destruction is also taking place at Collierstown, even before the Public-Private Partnership has entered into a contract to build the M3 Highway. The bureaucrats of the nation seem to be in a great hurry to complete the planned highway before public opposition grows too strong.
The insensitivity of the government to the beauties of the west of Ireland has been apparent before in places like Bantry Bay and Bellanboy, but this surely is its most momentous outrage in recent years. What’s next, a shopping center connecting the Lakes of Killarney? A strip mall in Dingle? The possibilities are only limited by the imaginations of the unprincipled people who seem to be in charge of the country’s cultural future.
These Collierstown sites may have held Ireland’s earliest Christians, dating to 400 A.D.
Photo:Tara Watch
Those who are not indifferent to the destruction of Irish culture are being advised to write to the Taioseach, Bertie Ahern, to Dick Roche, the Minister for the Environment, and Sean Haughey, Chairman of the Environmental Committee of the Irish Dail.
Tourism being one of Ireland’s major industries, those who oppose the project want to enlist the voices of people conscious of their Irish heritage in places like the United States and Australia.
It has also been recommended for dissenters to this project write to the major Irish newspapers. Further information is available through the Global Arts Collective and a useful blog, Tara Watch. A quick response is needed if these geographical treasures of Ireland are to be preserved.
You can reach AR Correspondent T.S. Kerrigan at scottroado0@earthlink.net
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