TaraWatch has launched a new petition drive, to appeal to the United Nations to intervene in the Tara situation. Our goal is to reach 1,000,000 signatures, and to submit the petition to the UN Headquarters in New York City. If you are interested in joining this effort, please join TaraWatch USA and email us at info@tarawatch.org

The M3 motorway is being built by the Irish Government, in public private partnership with Siac and Ferrovial construction companies, through the centre of this landscape, and a 50 acre interchange is being built 1,000 metres from the summit. Already, dozens of archaeological sites within the landscape have been excavated and demolished, and construction is due to be completed in 2010.

If ever there was a place that deserved to be preserved in the name of the dead generations from pre-historic times up to historic times up to completely recently - it was Tara. I think it literally desecrates an area - I mean the word means to de-sacralise and for centuries the Tara landscape and the Tara sites have been regarded as part of the sacred ground.

By David Kenny

Sunday Tribune - 28 June 2009

“THIS boys,” said Mr Halpin, “will stay with you forever. I hope it makes a big impact.”

Ordinarily, whenever a teacher spoke of making an ‘impact’ at St Joseph’s National School in Glasthule, you started sweating. It normally involved the crack of a bamboo cane. Not on this occasion though. We were about to see something historic. Besides, Halpin always preferred sarcasm to brutality. He was a bit of a hero. He played Mungo Jerry records in class and showed us how to make free plectrums out of detergent bottles. He also liked cartoons and had a wit as dry as a pub on Good Friday. He seemed to actually like us.

The historic occasion took place on a trip to the National Library in 1979. Myself and two other 11-year-olds, Cianan and Mick, were to choose books for the school. The four of us clowned the day away with Mr Halpin leading the laughter. Afterwards, he took us to see a part of Dublin he hoped we’d remember forever. He hoped seeing it would make an impact on our young minds. It did. I can still see, through a gap in the hoarding, the muddy timber steps of Wood Quay. “This is going,” he said. “The council is covering it with concrete.”

All the way home we simmered with anger, fuelled by his. He told us how protestors had found swords in the builders’ rubble and how the city walls had been razed. He explained how the quay had been named a national monument but the government destroyed it anyway. He told us the only people who wanted the ugly new buildings were politicians.

I still get angry when I pass Wood Quay. Halpin had given us a mental snapshot of our disappearing history. I’ll always have it in my head.

Last week, I saw Wood Quay again when John Gormley announced a new archaeological code of practice to protect our monuments. There was the clang of a rusty gate being bolted and the distant neighing of a horse. This is the man who sold Tara to get into bed with Fianna Fail – the party which was responsible for Wood Quay. Despite being ‘Green’, he has done nothing to halt the M3 ploughing through the Tara/Skryne valley. Instead he has concentrated on defending his predecessor’s demolition of the Lismullin national monument which lay in its way.

Dick Roche contravened European law by failing to commission an environmental impact study on the site. The government has now spent huge sums fighting the European Commission over the issue. Gormley also spent a bundle drafting last week’s Eirgrid Code of Practice. If the European Court finds against Ireland, the National Monuments Act will have to be amended and the code will have to be redrafted. More money flushed away.

The M3 tolls will go out of Meath to a multinational. More waste.

The mishandling of Tara proves, conclusively, that we are being governed by profligate idiots. The M3 should never have been routed through Tara/Skryne. It was always going to throw up monuments like Lismullin and lead to costly court battles. The obvious thing to do was to route to the west of Tara, avoiding the valley. The Greens campaigned against the M3. The World Monuments Fund and the Smithsonian Institution have placed it on their their ‘endangered’ lists.

Gormley is still pushing ahead with it though. In December, he hired 15 experts to help draft a list of sites, including Tara, to nominate to Unesco for world heritage status at its annual meeting last Tuesday. No list was delivered. TaraWatch is continuing its campaign to re-route the road with a protest at the Dail this Wednesday (1pm).

They will ask Gormley why the Unesco list wasn’t submitted as it would have tested the M3’s impact on Tara’s heritage status. They will also tell him that his new archaeological code of practice is meaningless while Tara is being vandalised. Gormley’s betrayal of Tara/Skryne is endorsing Fianna Fail’s traditional approach to the environment – “cover it over with concrete”. That party’s love of unbridled development is the reason why places like Meath became an overspill for Dublin and why its roads desperately need to be improved. They mustn’t be improved at the expense of Tara. It’s bound up with our history. For 800 years it tied our ancestors to a legendary past which was ultimately used to stir up revolution and create our Republic.

The world sees Tara as our spiritual centre. It even features in one of the most popular novels/films of all time. Scarlett O’Hara’s plantation is named after it in Gone With the Wind. Her fictional Tara represents the Irish emigrant’s longing for home. Our real one now stands for longing to get home from work quicker. We need Unesco to protect Tara from ourselves. Our generation stood by as the government over-developed our country.

What will our legacy be? Some Namaesque hulks of buildings? Some half-built estates? A concrete dagger through the heart of Tara? Is this what we want to leave behind for future schoolchildren and young teachers like the late Mr Halpin? I can imagine him surveying the M3 and sardonically quoting Scarlett’s famous line: “Is Tara still standing or is it gone with the wind?”

Scarlet? He’d be crimson with anger.

WRITE TO: editorial@tribune.ie

http://www.tarawatch.org

info@tarawatch.org

Thanks so much to those of you, whether near or far, who supported our demonstration yesterday. We had the Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Photocall, 98FM, International News Network, and Epoch Times covering the story. So, given the week that's in it, let's build on that.

Do you have any ideas for questions for your public representatives?  Questions need to be divided between Ministers for Transport, Environment, Finance, etc. They also need to be tailored for different political parties, such as tolls for Fine Gael because they don't care about heritage. Please email ideas to info@tarawatch.org

Some possible topics might include:

- How much money has Gormley spent on the UNESCO consultation?

- Explain: why the Tentative List was not submitted to UNESCO in Seville?

- How much money has the Minister spent on employing outside counsel to defend the case against Ireland over Lismullin?

- What does the Government propose to do if they lose the case in the European Court of Justice?

- What will the financial implications be if the Government loses?

- What is the current cost of the tolls proposed for the M3? - How much has the M3 cost so far?

NEWS STORIES

Group calls for Gormley resignation

Irish Times - Breaking News - 24 June 2009

Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Governement John Gormley must resign due to his failure to protect Irish heritage sites, representatives of the Save Tara campaign have said. Members of TaraWatch, the organisation which runs the campaign, held a protest outside Custom House in Dublin today to voice their dissatisfaction with the minister, who they say has reneged on promises to nominate Irish cultural areas such at the Hill of Tara, the Burren and Clonmacnoise to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which meets in Seville today.

"He has totally reneged on his statutory duties to protect Irish heritage and the Irish environment," said spokesman for the campaign Vincent Salafia. The group was also critical of the minister's decision to demolish the Lismullin national monument in order to make way for further developments to the M3 motorway.

The move has led to the European Commission bringing a case against Ireland to the European Court of Justice, alleging that the Government here has failed to implement the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive. Mr Salafia is confident that the European Commission will be successful in the case and said that "by failing to let the EU or UNESCO protect Irish heritage sites, John Gormley has done the exact opposite of what a Minister for the Environment is supposed to do."

WRITE TO lettersed@irishtimes.com

Campaigners Target Gormley
Irish Examiner - 24 June 2009

ENVIRONMENTAL campaigners have criticised Environment Minister John Gormley for the delay in submitting the Hill of Tara for consideration as a world protected heritage site.

Members of TaraWatch, the organisation dedicated to the protection of Tara as a priceless archaeological site, picketed the Green Party leader's office yesterday at the launch of their 'Gormley Must Go' campaign.

The demonstration coincided with a UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting in Seville.

WRITE TO letters@examiner.ie

http://www.tarawatch.org

http://www.hilloftara.info

‘Demonstration Against Minister Gormley’s Waste of Taxpayers’ Money at Tara’

Celebrants of the Summer Solstice at the Hill of Tara today are being asked to join a demonstration against the Minister for the Environment, on Tuesday 23 June, at the Custom House, at 12.00 noon.

The demonstrations will mark the day when Minister Gormley was supposed to submit Tara as a World Heritage Site to UNESCO, as well as the week that the European Court of Justice is hearing a case by the European Commission against Ireland over the M3 at Tara.

The demonstration is designed to highlight Minister Gormley’s waste of taxpayers’ money , because they Minister:

-    Hired 15 consultants in December to form an Expert Advisory Panel to hold a public consultation to develop a new list of UNESCO sites, including the Hill of Tara, which was supposed to be presented at the annual UNESCO meeting in Seville on Tuesday, 23 June. They have failed to develop the list, and Tara and other sites will not now be presented.

-    Is paying enormous legal fees to outside legal counsel to defend a legal action taken by the European Commission in the European Court of Justice, over the demolition of the Lismullin national monument on the M3 motorway at Tara. 

-    Is exposing the Irish taxpayer to enormous fines and the possibility that the M3 will still have to be re-routed,  by refusing  to stop works on the M3 at Tara, once the EU case was filed

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said at the launch of the legal action:

"I am disappointed that Ireland has not accepted the Commission view that improvements are needed in its legislation on impact assessments in order to better safeguard, and give the public more say in decisions affecting, its rich archaeological heritage, and to better guarantee that industrial projects will be comprehensively assessed."

TaraWatch member, Vincent Salafia said:

“Minister Gormley will have cost this country hundreds of millions of euros if the Commission wins the case against Ireland, because the M3 will have to be re-routed.

“The Minister has been throwing a bucket-full taxpayers’ money at lawyers to defend the indefensible in the European Court, while allowing M3 works to proceed at Tara.

“Minister Gormley wasted more money on consultants to nominate it as a UNESCO site, even after, which has not happened.

“Gormley has done the exact opposite of what a Minister for the Environment is supposed to do, by refusing to let the EU or UNESCO protect Tara."

ENDS

CONTACT:

TaraWatch - Vincent Salafia 087-132-3365 / info@tarawatch.org

European Commission
Spokesperson for Environment:
Barbara Helfferich
Tel: +32 2 298 2010
GSM: +32 496 583 829
E-mail: barbara.helfferich@ec.europa.eu

MORE INFORMATION:

Press Release - European Commission - Brussels, 17 October 2007
‘Ireland: Commission to bring environmental impact assessment case to the
European Court of Justice’
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/07/1524&format=PDF&aged=1&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

UNESCO World Heritage Committee Meeting – Seville – 23-30 June
http://www.33whc.sevilla2009.es/en/

Press Release – Minister for the Environment – 12 December 2008
http://www.environ.ie/en/Heritage/WorldHeritage/LatestNewsonWorldHeritage/MainBody,18980,en.htm

Dear TaraWatch members

We need you to urgently write a letter to the Irish Newspapers and complain that the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, leader of the Irish green Party, has broken his promise to nominate the Hill of Tara as a UNESCO site, at the World Heritage Committee Meeting in Seville, June 23-30.

Here are the relevant newspapers and addresses, with the last article on Tara/M3 referenced, to use as a hook for the letter:

Diarmuid Doyle's article, from the Sunday Tribune last week offers a good opportunity to write letters. Write to editorial@tribune.ie - the text of the article:


The Irish Times can be reached at lettersed@irish-times.ie and the last articles mentioning Tara and UNESCO are:

M3 motorway 'ahead of schedule'

Tara endangered, says Smithsonian

Tara proposed as Unesco world heritage site

The Irish Independent can be reached at indpendent.letters@unison.independent.ie
recently had an article about the windfall of profits made by landowners

The Irish Examiner takes letters without a reference to an article, of which there have been very few. letters@examiner.ie

The Meath Chronicle has been active lately, and can be reached at ken@meathchronicle.ie

Recent stories on Tara / M3 include:


Hill of Tara nominated for World Heritage Site status

Hill of Tara included in review of heritage sites

New dual carriageway to M3 interchange opens in Navan

Please try and write a letter, pointing out that Gormley decided to make Tara a World Heritage Site last December. He spent a lot of money employing 15 consultants to sit on an Expert Advisory Panel, to conduct the public consultation, and the stated aim was to submit the revised Tentative List to UNESCO at the Seville meeting in June. Now, that is not going to happen. Why?

Here is the TaraWatch press release on the matter:

PRESS RELEASE - TARAWATCH.org - 10 June 2009

"Gormley Will Not Present Irish Sites to UNESCO at Seville Meeting"

The Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, has failed to finalise Ireland' proposed Tentative List of UNESCO Sites, and his Department will not present the Tentative List to the 33rd Session of the World Heritage Committee in Seville, 22-20 June. This means that possible nomination of Tara and other sites in Ireland will be delayed by a year.

The Minister had advertised a public consultation process last December, calling for nominations to Ireland's Tentative List. An advisory document sent out a 15-member panel of consultants (Expert Advisory group), said:

"Taking into account the feedback/output from the public consultation fora and interactive website, the Expert Advisory Group will identify the appropriate sites/properties/themes for inclusion on the new Tentative List. The new draft Tentative List will then be submitted to the Minister for his agreement by the middle of April 2009. The intention is to forward the list to the WH Centre in time for the World Heritage Committee 33rd Session in Seville in July 2009."

Ray Connell, of the Department of the Environment, has confirmed that the Expert Advisory group has failed to set up an interactive web site, for public consultation and failed to compile a new Tentative List. Instead, the List will be submitted by mail, thus avoiding oral presentation at the World Heritage Committee meeting, and preventing any public objections.

TaraWatch nominated the Hill of Tara to be a World Heritage Site, but only on condition that the M3 motorway is re-routed first. Our position is supported by the World Monuments Fund and the Smithsonian Institution.

Vincent Salafia of TaraWatch said:

"John Gormley is delaying the UNESCO nomination of the Hill of Tara, and other Irish sites by a year.

"The Minister has breached the public consultation guidelines, by failing to submit the proposed List of World Heritage Sites to UNESCO at the upcoming World Heritage Committee Meeting in Seville this month.

"The Minister's delay is preventing Observers from making oral objections at the World Heritage Committee Meeting, in Seville.

"Then Minister's delay is also ensuring that the M3 is completed, before UNESCO is brought into the equation, and it is too late to save Tara."

ENDS

More information:

UNESCO Tentative Lists

Expert Advisory Panel guidelines for public consultation

CONTACT

info@tarawatch.org

http://www.tarawatch.org
http://www.hilloftara.info

TaraWatch Looks Across the Atlantic for Support

Epoch Times - Apr 14, 2009 - By Martin Murphy

The M3 motorway is still under construction but TaraWatch have not given up their hopes of saving the Irish historical site called "The Hill of Tara" and surrounding monuments; help may be on its way from across the Atlantic. TaraWatch Public Relations Officer, Vincent Salafia, has just finished a publicity tour of the United States, where he met with representatives of both archaeological and Native American institutions.

I asked the TaraWatch representative why he felt he had to travel abroad to get support even though we had the Green Party in Government here in Ireland. Mr Salafia said with respect to the Green Party “They have been absolutely abysmal ... Tara was on the table when they were negotiating their terms for government ... the Greens basically traded off our backs. “We feel very betrayed by the Green party and we do not hold out any hope that they will do anything proactive in terms of saving Tara.”

While in the USA Mr Salafia met with the World Monuments Fund, in New York City, after submitting the nomination for the Hill of Tara to be on their 2010 List of Most Endangered Sites (Tara is on the current list.) “We were trying to mobilise them and get them involved in the UNESCO confrontation by supporting our argument.” TaraWatch's argument being that the motorway should be re-routed rather than having a UNESCO site with a motorway running right through it. Mr Salafia said “We are afraid that what will happen here in Ireland will be similar to what happened in Stonehenge in England, the motorway was completed and then UNESCO said the motorway had to be moved. “So it could be economically viable to move the road here now even though it's under construction, we still have not given up on the campaign.”

Mr Salafia explained that while in the US he made a presentation to the Council on Archaeology at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and asked them to sign a statement calling for the M3 motorway to be re-routed, before Tara is declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Vincent Salafia told The Epoch Times that he was also trying to drum up support from the likes of Mr Daniel M. Rooney the next United States Ambassador to Ireland. According to Mr Salafia a number of US bodies have made statements on the issue which can be found on the Save Tara website www.hilloftara.info. “There is massive interest and support from Irish American and indeed all Americans, particularly the academics... the Smithsonian Magazine recently listed Tara on their ten must see sights before they disappear.”

Mr Salafia also met with representatives of Native American tribes, and proposed a gathering of indigenous peoples on the Hill of Tara, during Heritage Week, in late August. TaraWatch is currently in talks with indigenous peoples in Australia and Africa, as well as North America and Canada, regarding the proposed event. It was Mr Salafia hopes that with this new support a process of engagement and problem solving could restart.

'Woodhenge' found in Hill of Tara's soil - Computers bring 4,500-year-old monument to life

Sunday Times - Ireland | April 12, 2009 By Gabrielle Monaghan

Ireland's “Stonehenge”, a 4,500-year-old structure at the Hill of Tara in Co Meath, has been re-created by archeologists and computer-graphics experts. They have built a representation of a huge, wooden monument that appears to have been used for inauguration ceremonies and pagan burials of Ireland’s high kings. Underground remains of the structure were discovered by soil x-rays of the hill, which has been at the centre of an international dispute because of its proximity to the new M3 motorway.

The model, to be shown on an RTE television documentary this week, was created using information gathered from studying a ditch, six metres wide and three deep, cut into the bedrock of the hill and enclosing the Mound of Hostages, an ancient passage tomb. Study of the remains of tree trunks have prompted scientists to conclude the hill was once surrounded by a “wooden version of Stonehenge” that would have been 250 metres in diameter, a “massive scale” similar in size to Croke Park. Archeologists believe elaborately decorated timber posts and crossbars rose out of the ditch and surrounded the tomb, which is believed to be Tara’s oldest monument. It is estimated the mound was raised in about 3,000BC, making it a contemporary of Stonehenge, the ancient monument in the English county of Wiltshire, and the pyramids of Egypt. Tara was the coronation place of the country’s pre- Christian kings. A pillar stone, the Lia Fail, originally stood at the northern end of the Mound of Hostages and legend had it that when the true king of Ireland stood on this phallic symbol, it would roar.

Robert Vance, a historian who worked on the two-part RTE series, entitled Secrets of the Stones — Decoding Ireland’s Lost Past, and the author of an accompanying book of the same name, said there are a number of theories about what the wooden henge was used for. “Part of the inauguration of new kings involved walking to the banqueting hall, which was really just a low subterranean channel, and passing the tombs of their forefathers,” Vance said. “Perhaps they were then made kings in the centre of that timber circle. But there’s also a chance bodies of kings were left within the timber structure to decay. In some excavations, bones of birds were found as well. So it’s possible .. took place there, in which winged raptors such as eagles were used to deflesh the body.

Pagan people of similar beliefs in native America and Polynesia thought that using birds to pick away at the body would allow the soul to become free.” Using high-definition, computer-generated imagery, a vision of the circular arena at the Hill of Tara was created for the documentary. It posits catastrophic events 4,000 years ago may have caused a change in our ancestors’ beliefs At around this time, there is evidence Ireland’s passage tombs were abandoned in favour of “new monuments and new gods” and people were never buried in them again. One theory is that a long spell of bad weather could have led people to change their beliefs. According to studies of ancient trees preserved in Ireland’s bogs, a growth pause caused by climate change occurred at this time, suggesting that some catastrophic event might have left people in fear. Another theory is that a volcano in the 6th century may have frightened pagan Celts Celts into believing in “new” gods because of the weather changes caused when the dust reflected light and heat away from the Earth. Vance believes, however, that the event that led people to change their beliefs was more likely a comet during the Bronze Age, which partly disintegrated and sent fireballs and flaming debris across the sky. “We see such comet debris as shooting stars in the night sky. To our ancestors, these were terrifying heavenly signs,” he said. The comet would also have triggered a dust veil that caused temperatures to plunge.

“The old-style temples like Newgrange weren’t powerful enough to compete with this new object in the sky,” according to the documentary. “It was enough to make these ancient people question their very beliefs. Did the prehistoric passage tomb builders abandon their religion in the face of something they couldn’t understand, something that nearly wiped them out?” In February, Tara was included in a list of “must-see” endangered sites by a magazine published by the Smithsonian Institute, one of America’s most influential museums.

The site was equated with the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Tara has also been nominated for inclusion as a Unesco World Heritage site, and TaraWatch, a pressure group, claims the M3 should be re- routed as a result. The National Roads Authority says work on the M3 is ahead of schedule and it could be finished before the July 2010 deadline. “The existing road to Navan is even closer to the Hill of Tara, and the new motorway won’t be seen from the hill, so it doesn’t visually impinge on it,” Vance said.

Part One of the documentary aired on at 6.30pm on RTE 1. Part 2 will air on May 5.

Hi all,

If you want to email every single TD, Senator and Irish Member of the European Parliament, you can do it in just five minutes by using the new web site, http://www.contact.ie

Please email all the legislators and demand that they engage with the proposed problem-solving initiative for Tara and the M3, which will begin at Trinity College Dublin on Tuesday 24 March. Details at:
http://www.tarawatch.org/the-..hill-of-tara-round-table-..meeting-one-24-march

If you want a template for your letter, please adapt the text at:
http://www.tarawatch.org/..saint-patricks-day-plea-made-..to-opposition-parties-to-..develop-a-new-tara-proposal

If you have time, please email any other stakeholders you feel should be involved in the process.

Cheers,

Vincent

To register for the TCD event on Facebook, please visit
http://www.facebook.com/event...php?eid=61683416846