Mar 12 2009
The future for the Hill of Tara
 Pic: Smithsonian. |
“The harp that once through Tara’s halls The soul of music shed Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls As if that soul were fled.” The words of 19th-century Irish poet Thomas Moore still ring true, and the only music you’re likely to hear around Tara nowadays is the clang of construction equipment reports the Smithsonian. Several hundred acres of gentle green fields, marked by some lumps and bumps, cover this patch of County Meath in northeast Ireland. A nice place to lie down and watch the clouds scud by, perhaps, but is it any more remarkable than the rest of Ireland’s lovely landscape? |
Cinnte, to use an Irish expression of certitude. The archaeologically rich complex on and around the Hill of Tara is seen by many as the spiritual and historic heart of Ireland. It was the venue for rituals, battles and burials dating back to 4000 B.C. More than 100 kings were crowned at Tara, and St. Patrick is said to have stopped there to seek royal permission before spreading his message of Christianity.
George Eogan, a retired Dublin archaeologist who led excavations near the hill in the 1960s says:
Tara is a part of the Irish psyche. Irish people, they know of Tara from their very early days. It’s in schoolbooks and stories, even in primary school.
But Irish history now risks being consumed by the Celtic Tiger—the nickname given to Ireland’s phenomenal economic expansion for more than a decade. Inevitably, a thriving economy brought demands for an expanded infrastructure. And so, in 2003, the Irish government approved construction of a new four-lane tollway, the M3, to cut through the Tara complex. Construction began in 2005, and despite a storm of public protest, the project appears unstoppable.
Vincent Salafia, a lawyer from nearby County Wicklow who founded the anti-M3 group TaraWatch in 2005 says:
When it was proposed in 2000, most people nationally had no idea what was happening. And I think everyone trusted the government not to pick a route that was so damaging. There’s flat land all around. We still can’t quite figure out why they insisted on going so close to Tara.
Proponents of the M3 argue that the highway will improve life for tens of thousands of commuters who live northwest of Dublin and often spend hours each day creeping along traffic-clogged, two-lane roads into the capital city, about 30 miles away from Tara. Other proposed routes for that section of the M3 would have disturbed a greater number of private homes and farms. Proponents also note that the new road will be almost a mile away from the actual Hill of Tara, a 510-foot-high knoll.
Read the full story on the Smithsonian site.
