Fionnuala Devlin - Article On Tara

[S.I. Sheehan]

Up until May of this year, the fight to protect the ancient landscape of Tara
from the M3 motorway was seen by many as being a lost cause. The Irish
government ignored all pleas on Tara's behalf, including a joint-letter signed
internationally by 350 academics emphasizing what a unique cultural treasure the
Tara landscape is, not just for Ireland, but for the world. The plight of Tara
began to receive less and less press coverage. The stage looked set for the M3
double-tolled four-lane motorway. On April 30th, the Minister for Transport,
Martin Cullen, officially turned the first sod for construction on the motorway
to begin. However anyone familiar with the story of Tara knows there is no place
in Ireland with a more dramatic and flamboyant history, and as if on cue, the
very day after the minister's visit, archaeologists announced that at
Lismullin in the Tara valley, a site of national monument status had been
discovered smack in the middle of the motorway's path. The site is an enormous
find, both literally "it is the size of three football fields", and in terms
of its significance. Archaeologists believe the site, which is a wooden henge,
was a pagan ceremonial temple used by the ancient kings and queens.



After a recent Irish general election, a coalition government was formed between
the ruling Fianna Fail party and some smaller parties, including the Greens. In
the ensuing cabinet reshuffle, the Minister of Environment and Heritage, Dick
Roche, lost his post, and was replaced by John Gormley of the Green Party.
However Minister Roche's last official act was to order that the site at
Lismullin should be "preserved by record", that is, photographed, noted
down, and then bulldozed through and cemented over, in effect, completely
demolished. The new incoming Minister, previously a staunch supporter of Tara,
insisted that he must abide by that order. Yet opposition parties claim he does
in fact have the legal right to override the decision of his predecessor, he
simply does not have the will to do so. As the situation stands, the royal
Celtic temple at Lismullin is set to be destroyed.



A troubling event also happened at the beginning of July. An ancient burial
ground at Baronstown in the Tara valley, believed by expert archaeologists to
also warrant the status of national monument, was razed by heavy construction
machinery in the middle of the night. Thousands of years of heritage destroyed
under cover of darkness in a few hours.



Campaigners continue to do all they can to have the motorway rerouted and to
prevent the destruction of this unique area. A small number of protesters
camping at Tara have managed to block heavy construction machinery on a daily
basis, and continue to do a wonderful job protecting the sites. The first
arrests happened in July, when seven protesters were arrested, four of whom
refused bail conditions and spent time in jail. The terrible irony is that they
were arrested for trying to prevent illegal work. The European Union
Commissioner, Stavros Dimas, wrote to the Irish government in June warning that
continuing work on the M3 motorway after the archaeological discovery at
Lismullin is illegal within EU law. A letter was also sent by the important
European Union Petitions Committee demanding that all work be halted on the
project immediately. In June, Tara was also placed on the World Monument
Fund's list of most endangered heritage sites. However, so far the Irish
government is doing what it has done so consistently continuing to ignore
the great national and international outcry at the senseless destruction of the
Tara valley.



Tara has seen many battles over the last five thousand years, but no battle has
posed a greater danger than the one it is embroiled in now. Its enemy is, the
Orwellian titled, Minister for Environment and Heritage, and those behind him.
Its champions are the many people who know that a motorway through this ancient,
royal and holy valley is a desecration that they will do their utmost to
prevent.