Post by earl on Jun 7, 2007 9:00:36 GMT
The Hill of Tara is to be added to the New York-based World Monuments Fund (WMF) list of 100 most endangered sites, The Irish Times has learned.
It is also believed that re-routing the M3 motorway to avoid sensitive archaeological sites, is one of the key demands being made by the Green Party in its talks with Fianna Fáil this week.
An application to the WMF to include Tara on its "watch list" was made earlier this year by TaraWatch, one of the groups campaigning against plans to route the M3 through the Gabhra Valley, between the ancient seat of Ireland's high kings and the Hill of Skryne.
The list is intended to draw international attention to threats facing cultural heritage sites around the world. The inclusion of the Hill of Tara on the list, to be announced in London tomorrow, will add further weight to the campaign to protect its setting. Compiled by an international panel of experts, the "watch list" is described as "a global call to action on behalf of sites in need of immediate intervention, bringing them to international attention and helping to raise funds for their rescue".
Vincent Salafia, spokesman for TaraWatch, said he hoped the designation of Tara as an endangered site could make his group eligible for funding for an independent archaeological report and possible litigation costs in the event of another judicial review. The group is considering taking another action in the High Court if Minister for the Environment Dick Roche directs the National Roads Authority to permit the destruction of the recently-discovered henge at Lismullen.
The inclusion of Tara on the 100 most endangered sites list, however, does not guarantee that funding will be available from the WMF. TaraWatch will be able to make an application but the outcome would depend on a thorough review of the case.
The WMF bills itself as the foremost private, non-profit organisation dedicated to the preservation of endangered architectural and cultural heritage sites throughout the world. Since 1965 it has helped to save some 450 irreplaceable sites in more than 90 countries. These range from the vast temple complexes at Angkor, Cambodia, to the historic centre of Mexico city and the 18th century Qianlong Garden in Beijing's Forbidden City.
The prehistoric ceremonial site at Lismullen was not identified by previous archaeological surveys and test-trenching along the route of the M3. The director of the National Museum, Dr Pat Wallace, has advised that it should be fully excavated. For the past few weeks protesters have been blocking heavy machinery leaving construction compounds on the motorway route.
© 2007 The Irish Times
With the end of the Northern Ireland conflict and the power-sharing agreement of the Rev. Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party and Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein, this area of County Meath has rapidly become the most disputed terrain in the country. Even the nearby scene of the Battle of the Boyne, where in 1690 William of Orange defeated James II to reassert English Protestant rule over Ireland, and which was visited recently by Ian Paisley and Prime Minister Bertie Ahern in a spirit of great joviality, joshing and gift-giving, is now likely to be relegated to the status of theme park.
What makes the Tara-Skryne Valley so special is not only the battle once fought there, but a remarkably high concentration of ceremonial monuments including the Hill of Tara itself, which was, and is, the seat of the High Kings of Ireland.
Archaeologists calculate that the oldest of the monuments, the Mound of the Hostages, was raised in about 3000 B.C., thus making it roughly contemporaneous with the construction of Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt. This monument contains a chamber in which, at the festivals of Imbolc (Feb. 1) and Samhain (Nov. 1), the rising sun is perfectly aligned, just as at the winter solstice in the great passage tomb at nearby Newgrange, a shaft of sunlight penetrates the inner sanctum of a massive mound whose white quartz facade is glisteningly reminiscent of the Portland stone of the Parliament buildings in Belfast.
Also nearby is the Hill of Slane, on which St. Patrick is reputed to have lighted a fire to get the attention of King Laoghaire and begin to obscure the light of the sun god with the light of God the Son. It was from the Mound of the Hostages that the coronation stone of Laoghaire and countless other Irish kings, the six-foot-tall, phallic Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny, was moved to the nearby memorial honoring the 500 or so United Irishmen who died at the Battle of Tara Hill.
Some believe that the Stone of Scone, long used for the coronation of British monarchs, may also be traced back to Tara, having been removed by St. Columba to Scotland and thence to Westminster Abbey by Edward I.
And it was at Tara in 1843 that the political leader Daniel O’Connell, known as “the Liberator,” spoke to an estimated million people — the largest of a series of “monster meetings,” as they were termed — in support of Catholic Emancipation, the repeal of the Act of Union between Britain and Ireland and the restoration of the Irish Parliament. This location was chosen by O’Connell precisely because of its profound significance in the Irish psyche.
It’s an irony, then, that Prime Minister Ahern and the Fianna Fail government of the Republic of Ireland (the party name, which means “Soldiers of Destiny,” suggests an intimate relationship with the Stone of Destiny) have seemed to be standing by while the Tara-Skryne Valley is threatened with destruction by the building of a 70-mile motorway to ease the commute between County Meath and Dublin to the south.