The Tara Bypass – what they won’t tell you
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@darkman wrote:
IMO ANYONE who blocks contractors physically trying to do their jobs on the site should be arrested. None of these people have any right to interfer in such a manner in a scheme that has the support of the majority of people and was given the go ahead by those charged on behave of the people to give their backing to such projects or not – in this case Bord Pleanala.
Yeah hang them, dirty bastards 😡 … Same types that showed up how the Carrickmines site was being obliterated by a junction that was contrived specifically to facilitate the Jackson Way rezoned lands. (Another BP approved project). :rolleyes:
Anyhow, Pat Kenny is currently doing a show on this on Radio 1 –
@hutton wrote:
Yeah hang them, dirty bastards 😡 … Same types that showed up how the Carrickmines site was being obliterated by a junction that was contrived specifically to facilitate the Jackson Way rezoned lands. (Another BP approved project). :rolleyes:
Anyhow, Pat Kenny is currently doing a show on this on Radio 1 –
pk being hostile and dismissive, if bin laden was on he wouldn’t give him such a hard time
@lostexpectation wrote:
pk being hostile and dismissive, if bin laden was on he wouldn’t give him such a hard time
ah come on now, there was a fair auld anti crowd gathered by the end of the show, their hostility, with heckles & intimidation came across above anything else, despite it being radio. They don’t do themselves any favours, taking that kind of approach..
@hutton wrote:
Yeah hang them, dirty bastards 😡
Well I would not go that far but certainly a harsher punishment would be desirable;)
EU to take action over handling of Tara route for M3, Jamie Smyth in Brussels
The European Commission is expected to begin legal action against the Government today over the manner in which it has proceeded to build the M3 motorway near the Hill of Tara.
The decision will provide a boost to campaigners who are trying to force Minister for the Environment John Gormley to consider re-routing the motorway.
The legal move is not expected to halt the construction of the road, but it will force the Government to defend its position at Europe’s highest court, a process that could eventually lead to the imposition of fines if it loses the case.
Environment commissioner Stavros Dimas will tell his commissioner colleagues at a meeting in Brussels today that the National Monuments Act in the Republic does not offer enough protection for important archaeological sites.
He will also highlight alleged weaknesses in Irish law that split decision-making between Irish planning authorities and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for industrial projects.
He cites the Government’s action at the Hill of Tara as a prime example of how it fails to conform to EU law. In a draft decision, which requires the approval of commissioners before taking effect, Mr Dimas refers Ireland to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over these shortcomings.
“The commission considers Ireland’s approach to decisions involving the destruction or removal of historic structures and archaeological monuments to be in contravention of the directive,” says an explanatory note on the decision seen by The Irish Times.
The relevant EU directive says there must be a proper assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment.
The commission believes a decision not to order a second environmental impact assessment when a potentially significant archaeological site was discovered at Lismullen, close to Tara, was “in contravention of the directive”.
“Because the prehistoric site was only identified in 2007, its significance could not be taken into account in a 2003 assessment of the motorway project,” says the commission’s explanatory note.
Despite the EU executive’s concerns, in June the Government ordered that the Lismullen site be excavated without a second environmental impact assessment. It said no delay was possible due to the fragile nature of the site.
But campaigners hoping the commission would intervene directly to force the Government to halt construction of the M3 may be disappointed. The draft commission decision refers only to weaknesses in Irish legislation and does not question the Government’s choice of route for the M3. Neither does it seek any kind of court injunction that would force the Government to stop work on the motorway.
The Government has argued that the motorway is a vital piece of national infrastructure and choosing an alternative route for the M3 would cause delays and cost up to €200 million extra.
Campaigners have fought a vocal campaign against the motorway, which they claim will spoil the Hill of Tara for future generations.
The commission document claims that when decisions are being taken on proposed incinerators and other industrial projects, “Irish rules do not guarantee that interactions such as those between pollution-control measures and the landscape will be adequately assessed and taken into account.There are risks that outcomes required by the directive will not always be achieved,” it concludes.
The commission decision to start legal action will force the Government to defend its position at the ECJ in Luxembourg.
If it loses the legal case and does not amend its laws to conform with the relevant EU directive, it could eventually face heavy fines.
Ireland currently faces 37 infringement proceedings for breaching environmental directives.
The Irish Times
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/frontpage/2007/1017/1192565609152.htmlhas anyone any more info on the ‘new’ fortified complex dicovered at Tara????
Meanwhile, pressure group TaraWatch has described as “significant” the discovery of a new archaeological site in the path of the M3 motorway, at the Hill of Tara in Co. Meath.
The group called on Minister for Environment, Heritage and Local Government, John Gormley, to place a preservation order on the site which it says may be a fortified complex.
The site is located between the defensive fort of Rathmiles and the burial ground at Soldier Hill, the newly discovered site is further proof that the Hill of Tara constitutes a vast archaeological complex.
from: http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2007/1017/breaking7.htm
@The Irish Times wrote:
Permission refused for M3 industrial estate
Olivia KellyAn Bord Pleanála has refused permission for an industrial estate beside the new M3 motorway near Dunboyne, Co Meath, on the grounds that it would damage plans for the Dublin-Meath rail link and constitute an “unsustainable car dependent development”.
Meath county councillors last June voted unanimously to rezone the land for the 42-acre industrial /business estate, in contravention of their own development plan. The application for 32 offices, light industrial and warehousing units by Royal Gateway Holding Ltd, was subsequently granted planning permission by the council but was appealed by An Taisce to An Bord Pleanála.
In its ruling, the board said that the development contravened both national and regional policies and was contrary to proper planning and sustainable development of the area.
The development site was 1km north of a proposed railway station and park-and-ride facility and would be “prejudicial” to the development of a plan for the use of the land surrounding the major rail project. The site would be accessed by a link road to the M3 which forms an “integral part of the regional road and motorway system”.
Additional traffic caused by the development would “interfere with the free-flow of traffic and the carrying capacity” of the road and thus “fail to protect public investment in the national road network”, the planning board said.
“It is considered that the proposed development, which would be principally dependent on private car, would lead to the creation of an unsustainable car dependent development.”
Good !
It is inspiring to see this Australian gentleman putting up a fight for Irish cultural heritage as a matter of principle – good on him! 😎
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 04:10:29 +0000
Subject: Operation Bedrock
For Info copy of email to Gormley from an Australian Green.Mr Gormley,
Many members of the Australian Greens (many of Celtic and Irish extraction) are watching closely and with concern your handling of the Tara/Skyne Valley issue.
Your role as a member of the Irish Greens Party and the Minister of Environment is noted with alarm.
In my opinion, your actions and inactions in your role as Minister are a serious embarrassment to the Green movement around the world. I consider your failure to act to protect a site of such great significance as Tara as a fundamental departure from Green principles.
In the lead up to the Global Greens conference in Brazil in May, consultations will be occurring around the world to consider sanctions against the Irish Greens as a consequence of your actions and inactions.
In order to avoid any further damage to public perceptions of the green movement around the world, I urge you to immediately resign, either from the Greens Party or from the Irish Government; or from both.
I look forward to your early response.
Kevin Phelan LL.B GCLP
Member Australian Greens SA Branch
Convenor, Port Adelaide Greens
Australian Greens National Conference Delegate for South Australia/////////////////////////
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:15:16 +0000
Subject: Re: 85% of Respondents say No to the M3Here is my latest correspondence to Gormley – from an Australian Green
Dear Mr Hanifin,
Thank you for your considered reply.In a democracy, the Government of the day must take responsiblity for the decisions of previous governments. It is not an excuse to say that a previous government made a decision thereore we cannot change it. In Australia in 1938, before the outbreak of hostilities with Japan, the Australian Government contracted with Japan to sell large amounts of raw materials – particularly iron – to Japan. At the time, Japan was actively engaged in agressive actions against China and Korea. The PM at the time, Bob Menzies, earned the moniker “Pig Iron Bob” for his trouble. The contracts were later discontinued as Japan’s agressive intentions were realised.
In Tasmania in the 1990’s, the Greens entered into a coalition government with the Australian Labor Party. The agreement, known as the Accord, allowed the Greens autonomy in decision making but committed them to support the ALP in supply bills and by not moving no confidence in the House. The labor – green accord collapsed when the ALP tried to introduce measures destructive of the environment and outside the accord agreement. The Greens stood their ground. Better to be out of power and maintain credibility in the electorate
than to destroy your credibility and have no prospect of returning to the government benches. The other recent salient lesson (this one is about what not to do) comes from the catastrophic demise of the Australian Democrats, because in the public view, they sold out their principles. As of now, they have virtually ceased to exist as a political party in Australia, having previously held the balance of power in the Senate for nearly twenty years. You may know this story, if not, I suggest you “google it”, as they say these days. The Greens, in contrast, are consolidated as the third party in Australia with five senators and representation in all State/territory parliaments except Queensland and the Northern Territory. People trust us, and know we will stick to our principles. This is the key to our success.A poll in the Irish Post two days ago showed 89.9% of respondents opposed to the the M3 route. I would expect this figure would include virtually 100% of Green party voters. You are no doubt aware there is a High Court appeal against Minister Gormley’s (in)decision which is ongoing, supported by senior legal counsel and opinion, and is also supported as I understand it by the Irish SD Labour Party.
In such circumstances, it is untenable that a Green party Minister should be seeking to defend a decision to undermine an environmental principle so fundamental as the preservation of cultural heritage. I will not go into the detail of some of the incidents that have occurred and discoveries made during the M3 (de)construction. You are no doubt aware of them.
The debate amongst Greens around the world about the actions of your Gormley and the Irish Greens goes to the very heart of the question:
Why have a Greens party at all if this is the end result? Why do we get into politics, if, on achieving power, we are in fact, as your Gormley would have it, “powerless” to change decisions that fundamentally undermine the values for which we stand; no matter how unpopular, stupid or corrupt those decisions are? This is the equivalent of the Nuremburg Defence. It is a fatuous defence.Gormley is not powerless. He lies. This will be revealed in the High Court case, but I am sure, again, that you are aware of the legal argument he is faced with. He is the Minister. If indeed he truly believes that he is powerless, then he retains the power and responsibility to stand by the principles that those who voted for
him expected him to.He must resign.
If in so doing, he imperils the coalition government, good. One thing is for sure, if he does not make a principled stand, or be stronger in seeking to argue the case for the environment rather than merely defending an indefensible government decision, this will be the last time the Greens hold any sort of power in Ireland. Their credibility is already so damaged amongst their core constituency that one wonders if they will ever again muster more than 1-2% of the vote, or ever hold seats in the Dail again.
Although I am not an Irish citizen, this issue is my business for two fundamental reasons. One, I am of Irish heritage and Tara is sacred to me. Two, I am a green, and I believe that the success of the greens as a political movement at a global level is crucial to the very survival of our planet. But we must hold firm to our principles or the whole exercise is pointless.
What your Gormley is doing is undermining the green movement across the whole planet. It cannot, and will not, be allowed to pass without challenge or censure. If you are sending delegates to the Global Greens Conference [scheduled for 1-4th May 2008], prepare them for a very hard time. Prepare to be ostracised by the entire global green movement. Prepare for exile.
Kevin Phelan
Convenor Port Adelaide Greens
Australian Greens South Australia National Conference delegateWhere did you come by these? Was it an open letter to a paper or journal or something? They seem to be rather crudely structured and worded for a politician!!!
A worker on the site of the M3 on boards.ie says that Irish troops are moving in later today to clear out the protestors (should be interesting). This would follow reports in the media that the protestors have dug underground tunnels……..
Unconfirmed of course but watch out for news later apparently. Obviously the Gardai are not competent enough to deal with them:rolleyes:
About time IMO if its true.
Article in the Irish Times, Monday 24 March
Expert warns port site is of vast historical importance
‘The site earmarked for a major new port in north Dublin is of hugh archaeological and historical importance and may be where St. Patrick first landed in Ireland, accordingly to one of the country’s most eminent archaeologists.Prof. George Eogan has expressed concern about plans by the Drogheda Port Company to build a new deepwater port, at an estimated cost of €300 million, at Bremore on the north Dublin coast.
He says the area contains a unified prehistoric cemetry of mounds that extends for over a mile, from Gormanstown, which is to the north of the Delvin River, to Bremore, located to the south of the river.’ etc.
If a person was of a conspiratorial frame of mind, this report would be inclined to have the antenna twitching.
Does anyone remember the last days of Carrickmines? The save our heritage protestors were well dug in and it was shaping up to be Rourke’s Drift all over again. We thought all we had to do was sit back and watch as the protestors were picked off one by one in a gore fest, and then, without warning, one day, they just melted away! Someone had banged a drum to announce the construction phase of the M3 and, just like that, the showdown with the Zulu hordes of road engineers had suddenly switched to Tara.
If a person was of a conspiratorial frame of mind, he might see this article by Prof. Eogan as a distant drum roll, a subliminal message to the besieged Tara stockade, ‘save yourselves, melt away, there’s a jucy new battle with the evil development doers, and it’s just over those hills’.
If this is the message delivered by Prof. Eogan, it is done so unwittingly. Archaeologists are not devious people (except obviously in matters of career advancement and in the snakes and ladders pit of academic politics, like everyone else).
Although not devious, archaeologists are strange people, it’s not just the dress sense and the mad hair, it’s much deeper than that. These people inhabit a world that is both subterranean and stiflingly academic, most of the time they see no reason to interact with the surface world. Deep down (sorry), they know that their role is to shine a light on prehistory, but they only ever want to use 40watt bulbs, because they don’t like other people seeing the light. Archaeologist are so entrenched (sorry again) in their own little world that an exciting day for one of them is a day when they can run up to a colleague, clutching a miserable shard of broken pot and say ‘look gabriel, this proves conclusively what I already knew!’
When an archaeologist eventually files an excavation report (which many avoid for years), it’s either to fulfil a excavation licence condition, or it’s to debunk the assertions of a colleague, it’s never done to actually inform the public. Archaeologists have no consciousness of the public, nor any consciousness of the benefits that could derive if they would just engage in development discussions and bring an informed heritage perspective to the table.
A particularly troubling aspect of the Irish Times article is the reference to Bremore being the possible landing place of St. Patrick! All due respects to our patron saint, but nobody knows, or will ever know, where he actually set foot on Irish soil. As far as I knew, historians weren’t even prepared to confirm that there ever was a single ‘Patrick’ in a strictly historical sense. Normally, archaeologists wouldn’t touch this stuff with a stripy pole. This is Indiana Jones territory.
All of this makes the article by Prof. Eogan, an intriguing puzzle, and a nice bit of grist to the mill for the dedicated conspiracy theorist.
To be absolutely clear, I am not suggesting that George Eogan is capable of doing anything underhand, or that he has a pet project somewhere that, like Dr. Grant, somebody has come along now and offered to fund for two more years, so he’s off in a helicopter to Jurassic Park. I sat through enough George Eogan lectures to be able to state, with some conviction, that we can rule that out. There has to be another explanation.
For the conspiracy theory to stand up, and given that the article is essentially the product of a discussion between two people, the interviewee and the interviewer, perhaps we’ve been looking in the wrong direction.
Supposing a dodgy politician (is there any other kind?) were to suggest to a hungry journalist (is there any other kind?) that a decent front of paper story could be had by asking a few well chosen questions of an esteemed college professor, questions like:
Is there any archareology at all near Bremore?St. Patrick came from Britain, he would have landed on the east coast, right?
Could this be the progeny of the Eogan article?
Is the Eogan article the first drum beat in an orchestrated diversionary battle?
If a person was of a conspiratorial frame of mind, he might be inclined to say, possibly!
I’m not making any case for, or against, the Tara moterway, I would just like to point out that, whatever Tara actually is; ceremonial centre, burial ground, jerry-built ring fort, royal enclosure, mythical landscape, the list goes on, the one thing that we can say for sure is, that it is a grassy knoll!
You obviously didn’t see Prof.Eogan’s letter in Yesterdays Irish Times about Tara.
Forget your conspiracy theory.
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/letters/2008/0326/index.html#1206144724934Millennium: Sorry no, i didn’t see it, I was away for three days.
I’m not paying for the IT on line when I can pick it up half price most days. What is the gist of his article yesterday do you mind me asking you. I take it those mounds at Bremore are very important. The only mention of the Bremore / Gormanstown mounds in George’s book is one sentence on p. 93:
‘On the sea coast near the mouth of the River Devlin at Gormanstown (Knockinger) were four tombs, while a group of five mounds is at Bremore a few km further down the coast’.
I hope that piece came across as a bit of fun, I don’t need any solicitors letters in the box tomorrow.
Ah the joy of an institutional subscription!
Irish Times 26 March 2008
MOTORWAY WORKS AT TARA
Madam, – I was very disappointed to read in last Friday’s Irish Times that the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, John Gormley, declared himself satisfied that the National Roads Authority proposals, if implemented, would result in the protection of the monument at Rath Lugh.
This is not so as the monument and its environment have already been mutilated by work carried out on the proposed route of the motorway.
Rath Lugh and its environment is an integral part of the Tara archaeological and cultural complex. Its environment includes the significant Gabhra Valley to the west towards the Hill of Tara. The latter area is now reduced to a strip of rubble as a result of work carried out by and with the authority of the present Government of which Mr Gormley is a member. Furthermore, Rath Lugh is now divorced from the archaeological complex of which it formed a part from its construction many centuries ago.
As a result of the destruction, which I witnessed a couple of days ago, a “new” environment has now emerged, the personality of the area is being destroyed.
Standing on Rath Lugh and looking across the Gabhra Valley the main feature of that area is now the equivalent of a “race track” with heavy machinery driving up and down at considerable speed and creating vibrations which can be felt on Rath Lugh.
In the area that I visited three lines of defence were in place.
The outermost is a spiked iron fence up to eight feet in height and secured in concrete, next came security personnel and further inwards were members of the Garda SÃochána.
For me, this was an intimidating experience and one that I never expected to see in order to facilitate the destruction, by our own Government, of a key portion of our own great archaeological inheritance. – Yours, etc,
GEORGE EOGAN, Brighton Road, Rathgar, Dublin.
Thanks notjim, I hate to freeload like this.
I don’t like him when he’s this animated, he used to scare the shit out of me in tutorials when I hadn’t a clue which feckin pot was which, him and Caulfield, Herity would know the blank look on the face and let it be.
I’m not entirely sure that this blows my conspiracy theory, it just makes it more devious, doesn’t it?
so Rath Lugh, which nobody in Ireland had ever heard about before Squirt climbed into a hole under it, is now a “key portion” of our “great archeological inheritance”? I think not.
Workmen, proceed
@Sue wrote:
so Rath Lugh, which nobody in Ireland had ever heard about before Squirt climbed into a hole under it, is now a “key portion” of our “great archeological inheritance”? I think not.
Workmen, proceed
Sue, alot of archaeology is about discovering something which we dont already know .
Plenty people knew of Rath Lugh, and felt it was of significance even ‘great’ significance but had not yet been fully examined. Alot has come to light because of the M3 work and has been hastened into the public domain.The logic of your arguement implies because no one knew there was a Viking longship 30 feet below the surface at Woodquay then that developemt should not have been impeeded in any form or put another way
if the Sphinx was still covered in sand and the Egyptian gvt decided to build a city in that location but subsequently unearthed the head of this magnificent monument, then you would argue that the workmen should not be halted because noone knew it was there before the work started.
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