TARA: Time is not on Ireland's side

My latest report on the "ruthless desecration" and destruction of the Hill of Tara was published in the current edition of the Irish Echo, Australia's largest national Irish newspaper.

Dempsey's comments drive Tara road rage

By Maireid Sullivan

Page 12, Irish Echo (Australia) May 7 - 20, 2008

In it's March 26 edition, the Irish Echo published an article titled "Critics of Tara Road 'misled': Dempsey", in which the visiting Irish Transport Minister Noel Dempsey's "dig" at Irish Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney revealed a lack of reverence for Irish heritage.  In response to Professor Heaney's statement that the development of the M3 through the Tara Skryne Valley is a "ruthless desecration", Dempsey said, "I've never known Seamus to be an expert in the planning process."

A growing number of published reports reveal that Minister Dempsey's expertise in planning is failing the risk-management test – through not only a general lack of planning expertise, and planning for urgent climate change compliance, but in maintaining due process of Irish law. For example, the "Gateway to Meath" industrial park plan has been knocked back on grounds of illegal process and pressure by lobbyists, while Meath Co. Council's approval for 745 houses to be built on the site of the Battle of the Boyne, very near Newgrange, is currently being appealed.

Minister Dempsey celebrates the fact that he was the youngest Chairman of the Meath County Council - 1986-87. He gives the impression that he is of the school of economics that puts real estate speculation on an untouchable pedestal. For example, Raymond Potterton, of Raymond Potterton & Co. auctioneers and estate agents, specialising in residential property in Meath (www.raymondpotterton.com) was appointed to the Board of the National Roads Authority (NRA) on 12th February 2002, by then Minister for the Environment Noel Dempsey. And, the current Chairman of the NRA is Peter Malone, – also Chairman of CB Richard Ellis, Ireland, one of the largest real estate developers in the world.

In the Echo interview, Minister Dempsey repeated the now infamous pro-M3 line, "There is not a place in Co. Meath where you could stick a spade in the ground without hitting something of potential archaeological interest." However, there is an alternative shorter and cheaper route, and one that will not violate National Heritage sites, to the west of the Hill of Tara, along the disused old Navan Rail line.

In several national polls, the vast majority of Irish people have repeatedly shown that they do not want the M3 to go through the Tara Skryne Valleys. And, in support of friends and family living in Ireland, a growing number of Irish ex-pats are expressing serious concerns re. the current Irish government's apparent lack of interest in Ireland's great heritage and cultural destiny.

The Irish Government's FLOOD / Mahon Tribunal of Inquiry Into Certain Planning Matters and Payments, commonly known as the Mahon Tribunal in honor of its current chairman, and known previously as the Flood Tribunal, was established by the Irish Government on November 4, 1997.  Page 2 of the The Flood Tribunal Report says this: "On the 31st March 1996, the Sunday Business Post published an article by a journalist, Mr. Frank Connolly, under the heading, “Fianna Fáil Politician paid off by Developers.” The ramifications of this ongoing inquiry are still playing out, as seen in the sudden resignation of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Prime Minister of Ireland, with International headlines such as, "Irish prime minister resigns amid probes".

Since the real estate market leads the economy, I predict that when the growing recession hits harder, developers will be quick to say that development creates jobs. "Do you want jobs?" they'll ask. They will argue that, to provide those jobs, they must build housing and industrial estates along the many new superhighways, (attracting more toll paying drivers in the process). According to the Irish Ministry of Transport 2021 planning agenda, these freeways will fan out from Dublin, across Ireland, – such as the M3 through the Hill of Tara environs. And, the Irish people, out of desperation, may well allow them to continue to desecrate their heritage, pollute their environment, and pour concrete over prime agricultural lands. A new book "Confident New Ireland", describes Ireland as "set on Americanization".  But during the boom years, the country lost the link between the generation of national wealth on the one hand, and the ability to relate it to the needs of ordinary people. Part of the problem is the Government's continued focus on growth while abdicating accountability in important matters. Now the money is all gone and the social services, infrastructure, and economic stabilizers have not been put in place, and we must struggle to protect our heritage.

Yes, influential speculators and developers paid farm prices for the land along the route of the M3, long before the route was chosen. This is why the Irish government has flatly refused to take the shorter cheaper route to the West of the Hill of Tara, along the old Navan Rail line.  The value of that land will already have multiplied by a huge factor because it is earmarked for development.

At a standing-room-only public lecture at Trinity College, Dublin, on Tuesday 11 March, Fred Harrison, a leading world economist and the author of several books, including Wheels of Fortune, Power in the Land, Boom Bust, and Ricardo's Law, suggested that people be brought back into the cities, –"Building up is the way of the future," he said, "I fear for Ireland's future. Time is not on Ireland's side."

Time may not be on Ireland's side, but those of us who truly love our heritage, will do our best to prevent the "ruthless desecration" of our heritage!

Maireid Sullivan
Melbourne, Australia
Anam Cara for Tara arts action campaign
an initiative of the GlobalArtsCollective.org

TARA QUOTATIONS

“We have pledged ourselves to the dead generations who have preserved intact for us this glorious heritage that we, too, will strive to be faithful to the end, and pass on this tradition unblemished.”
Eamon de Valera, who served in public office from 1917 to 1973, holding    prime ministerial and presidential offices. 

"Tara is surrounded by historical reminiscences which give it an importance worthy of being considered by everyone who approaches it for political purposes and an elevation in the public mind which no other part of Ireland possesses,"
Daniel O’Connell, speaking to more than a million people converged on Tara. He is remembered as the founder of a non-violent form of Irish nationalism.

“It appears that Tara has been sold to the highest bidder, a business consortium that will stand to reap a substantial profit at our inestimable loss. To add insult to injury, each time we pass through the M3's toll-plaza barriers, we will do so in the knowledge that part of our money will be used to offset the costs of this cultural desecration.
The real toll will be more than monetary; it will be at the expense of our self-respect as a people and dignity as a nation.”
Joe Fenwick,
Department of Archaeology,
NUI, Galway