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Zing!Originally Posted by David Cochrane
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[quote=Auditor #9]I can almost hear you're breathless after that Insider. Can you tell me if this Stonehenge of Meath is of such International importance (which I'm sure it is btw) Why o why didn't we start preserving it twenty years ago?[/quote:1owdcv99]If you have to ask, you really haven't a clue about the location at all. The entire Tara-Skyrne Valley is an archaeological unit filled with sites that can only be understood, explored, and in the future potentially utilised for tourism purposes, as a collection. Running a massive motorway through what is believed to be the most sensitive archaological location in western Europe, and one of the most important worldwide, is madness. It involves in one action the greatest degree of environmental change in that sensitive location since the Ice Age, given the amount of earth works involved. It would create environmental pollution, transport pollution, noise pollution and light pollution at the most sensitive location imaginable.
The M3 is needed. The only issue is the location. It should have been planned to be around the valley. Running a motorway through that environment is the equivalent of running a motorway through Merrion Square and insisting that a six lane motorway would make no difference to the city's most famous Georgian square.
It is also an open secret that many property developers with FF connections and prominent places in the tribunals, have been buying up land alongside the proposed road for development purposes. One wonders whether a refusal to move the road really is about the concerns of commuters (if it was, they should be fasttracking the rail line to Navan. It isn't due to be open until two years after the next general election!) and more about ensuring certain FF developers are in a position to make a financial killing in rezoning along the route.
What has been going on in Meath is known. It has been suggested that in future years Meath will need its own Mahon tribunal to look into the shenanagans in the county. The M3 route is a part of that.
Because this is Ireland. Britain is spending billions of pounds rerouting a road they put near Stonehenge in the 1950s. Internationally, in historical importance, if Tara was Manchester United, Stonehenge would be Sheffield Wednesday. Stonehenge is far far less important. It is simply more visual. Unlike Stonehenge however, Tara is not just one location on a hill. It is a whole valley, all of which was used as a unit. To put it in modern day ecclesiastical terms, given that the valley was a religious site or sites, the entire valley is a cathedral. The actual Hill of Tara is merely the High Altar. The Hill of Skyrne is the Lady Chapel. And the monuments being found thought out the site, and which will be found in future on the site, are like the key architectural parts of the cathedral. You have to realise that the Tara-Skyrne Valley is one unit, a basic fact the NRA and gob************************es like Cullen seem neither to grasp nor care about. What the NRA and the government, now with Green backing, is trying to do, is run a motorway through one of the most sensitive archaelogical sites there is. Yes it should have been protected years ago. But as Georgian Dublin learnt, as the Carton estate showed, as the Wood Quay experience revealed, as the blowing up of the Public Records Office and one thousand years of Irish archives revealed, we Irish don't do enough about preservation until it is too late.
Thanks for explaining all this to the rest of us - you're obviously local to the area and I've been away from Ireland for a few years so if there has been opposition by tree-huggers in the valley then I missed it. But if this site has huge international academic tourist importance, then surely there is an economic argument for preserving it? and surely the UN gets involved in these sensitive areas? by what you are saying, the UN should be crawling all over it.
I know Sargent spoke about the corruption element of this on tv and fair play to him for doing so.
The convention has to decide tomorrow I imagine you want a negative outcome. If 2/3 of the members are anything like you and you're not a member are you?
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No. Not a member, but until this issue, definitely a sympathiser. The problem with Tara is that the buildings on it were largely wooden so visually there is not a lot to see. But it still should be promoted far more than is being done. As to the international knowledge of the issue: the UN is watching developments very carefully and may intervene. The Irish lobby in the US is thinking of raising it on the floor of Congress. The EU Parliament is horrified at the road plan, especially as it would be paying part of the bill. It may yet pull the financial backing for it. A court case may go to Strasburg to have the roadway stopped. Curiously, and maybe it is a sign of the negative aspect of the Celtic Tiger, Ireland seems to be less aware and concerned than the rest of the world. One international agency compared the risks posed to the valley as being an Irish equivalent of the destruction of the ancient buddhas in Afghanistan by the Taliban. A world heritage body recently put Tara on its 'endangered' list.
Been to Fez in Morocco and the UN had poured money into it. Different thing here though but great to know they might intervene because we are squabbling away amongst ourselves and by the looks of it making a hash of it. The GP can in fairness do very little in general given their support - and they need more btw and you might sound like an adamant member if you joined - they can do little in or out but more in. Maybe they have something up their sleeves yet with the UN. It would be like them to sneak in a clause like that somewhere.
You've won I surrender. The greens need you more than they need me.
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Insider, you're getting there. Tara is a good site,... its not a great site. There really is nothing there. No-one visits. And, anyway, anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of early Irish history knows that every 10 square miles of the country had a High King.
Just because the Irish Times is printing it dosnt say its true. If the Greens agree with building a dirty, noisy motorway right through Tara, then they really stand for nothing in this country. But I hope to God that the Times got it wrong.
Bah! Politicians! I was right all along! And Brian Boru was from CLARE!!I'm off to bed!
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