The Battle of Tara
by Pauline Bleach

We tumble out of the car and in through the narrow gate on to the Hill of Tara. Behind us just across the road that leads here  safely in the ground is an huge 300 stake 5000 year old Oak temple that surrounds the Hill.

We abandon the path for the long grass, traipsing across our history. The Hill is the central complex of our ancient civilisation. 7000 years of history, 3000 Years of Brehon law, a complex legal system that covered every area of Irish life until the 17th century, the landscape tells yet hides so much underneath it's green rolling vista of mounds and fortifications.

We reach the Central mound Teach Cormac and the Lia Fail [Stone of Destiny].
Legend says it calls out when touched by the High King of Ireland. Every Irish person who has been to Tara from Ollamh Foldha (High King, Founder of Brehon Law 1318 – 1358 BC), the O'Carolan (Harpist 1670-1738), W.B. Yeats (Poet 1865-1939 ) to James Joyce (Writer 1882-1941) has touched it just to see.

From Teac Cormac, we look across the valley to Hill of Skryne. Once this was filled with the residences of the four provincial Kings of Ireland, Brehon Law Schools, Medical Schools and Amphitheatres/Temples like the 2,500 year old one found at Lismullen in the path of the M3 motorway.

Down in the valley, the bulldozers are severing the plain for the new M3 motorway and with it my dreams that one day the fragments of our history would become a completed picture.

On the Hill another initiation, my friend introduces her young child to the mound of the hostages, that's where Finn fought the wicked Fairy Aileen, her young eyes pop out of her head. In Tara our culture lives.

I wonder once again what the valley would have looked for the greatest of Daniel O'Connell's monster marches. Estimates of over a million Irish people converged on Tara and shook the British Empire by peacefully, determinedly and with great dignity asking for Irish Home Rule.

"Tara is surrounded by historical reminiscences which give it an importance worthy of being considered by everyone who approaches it for political purposes and an elevation in the public mind which no other part of Ireland possesses,"
O’Connell proclaimed that day.

That was 1843.

Two years later, the Famine started.

Four years later, many of those who attended would be dead or emigrated.
The flame lit that day in the Tara valley the only legacy of their desperate lives.
Fire has a huge part to play in the myths of Tara from St Patrick’s fire on the Hill of Slane around 400-600 AD challenging the dominance of the Pagan King’s fire at Tara. All power is passed at Tara. As predicted by the Druids the Christian fire was not extinguished before dawn and outlived their pagan fire.

In 1902, a  more mischievous Maud Gonne (Irish Patriot 1865-1953 ) and 300 school children lit a bonfire intended to celebrate the new English King in honour of Ireland singing a jaunty version of a nation once again. Just a few years later these children would be foot soldiers of the revolution and the Free Irish State.

The history of Tara played a large part in instilling a sense of pride in our battered nation, Yeat’s seven heroic centuries.

He sat often on the Hill in despair of his love for Maud Gonne and the folly of ‘throwing the little streets upon the great’.

But freedom came to the twenty six counties if not the north. With it a re-emergence of prosperity, a blessing and it seems a curse as many people saw their lives swallowed by ever increasing traffic jams.

Into this emerged a new idea, one that would have before been inconceivable. Should we put a motorway through the Tara Valley?

Luckily, with a shorter cheaper route to the west of the Hill this seemed unnecessary.
Then to the horror of many Irish people a preferred route through the valley emerged. Dr Annaba Kilfeather from Margaret Gowan's company with no experience in the Tara area is quoted as saying that the current route was ‘less likely to disturb later prehistoric material associated with Tara’. How she came to this conclusion is still a mystery.

Margaret Gowan herself admitted in the planning hearing that her personal opinion that "that the effect of this route on the Hill of Tara and its outlying monuments is profound and would have severe implications from an archaeological perspective" had not  changed. Ms Gowan's previously had established that Route P, the Pink Route (East of Skryne) was the most viable route. This was not the chosen route. The Orange route O (West of Tara) was given a severe archaeological impact by Anna Kilfeather. No evidence was given to support this. The selection process appeared distorted. Neither of these routes went through the valley.

Out of the 6 routes proposed, 60 percent of people questioned in public consultation selected as first preference the two routes outside the valley, that is the Orange route and the Pink route.

But the Council explained that there “was no requirement in law for what had now developed as public consultation.”. The law it appears also does not require the finer details of the route considerations to be visible to the public making it hard to dispute.
Conor Newman’s appearance at the planning hearing should have rung alarm bells after all he was the head of the Tara Discovery project since 1992. Ms Gowan agreed that he was 'Ireland's leading expert as far as Tara was concerned'. But the planning board disregarded his evidence that his work was used inaccurately. He objected on behalf of himself and the Discovery project that the route chosen was the least desirable. Almost all of the archaeological work used to justify this decision was done by Conor Newman and the Discovery project.

The Council put large emphasis on the areas marked as work areas for the Discovery project. They claimed these meant that the “core” Tara area was not affected by the motorway. These were, as Conor Newman explained, merely a budget designations for a project plan.

Despite this, An Bord Pleanala used the “core zone” argument to justify their finding  that “the route as proposed would not have a significant impact on the archaeological landscape associated with the Hill of Tara”.

As Dr Tom O’Dwyer of the Chairperson of the Heritage council stated in 2005 “There has been a growing appreciation that the Hill of Tara itself is just the dominant element of a wider surrounding landscape of related ritual and settlement sites. The emphasis is on the words ‘wider landscape’”

This appreciation does not seem to apply to the our politicians.

Conor Newman cuts an unlikely figure of Chu Chullain but he has playing a heroic role in destroying the archaeological mythology put forward by the Council. The Government argues that we had our chance to object at the planning tribunal. It is one of the jokes of the Tara campaign that we should have all turned up with t-shirts pointing at Conor Newman printed ‘I’m with him’.

The Tara campaign is as unlikely group of bed-fellows as those who combined in 1916 to plan the war of independence and form our state. But their genuine and fundamental belief that the Tara valley is worth saving for future generations has formed a bond of camaraderie between these fellow travellers. 

But even Chu Chullain, who singlehandedly held back the army of Meab from Ulster would struggle against these odds.

Both major parties indifference to public opinion on this matter frustrated members of the public. 

Ireland made 2 percent of the complaints to the European Union petitions committee.
The committee visited Tara and called for a “review and a re-route”. A radio special from Tara was overwhelmed by calls in support of a re-route. |

The European Commission is taking Ireland to court. It believes the planning process for the M3 was flawed but sadly only hopes the “outcome that will result in the correct national legislation being put in place and the correct interpretation of the Directive applied.”  

Government proponents argue that “excavation is learning” but geophysical scanning would allow us to examine this area without destroying this unique undisturbed landscape. As the famous Time Team, television archaeologists remarked 'in a few years we won't have to dig'. Laws and technology so near but yet too late for the valley.
Often protester's have been accused of emotionalism and stopping progress, even though the Orange route is shorter and cheaper.

As government myths have been dismantled, a new claim emerged against the Orange route and Pink route, that there were too many houses in the way. The EIS does not support this.

The Battle of Tara, like the epics of old, has raged for 7 years and shows no signs of abating. Irish people around the world continue to protest.

“We have pledged our selves to the dead generations who have preserved intact for us this glorious heritage, that we, too, will strive to be faithful to the end, and pass on this tradition unblemished.”
-Eamon de Valera

NOTE: Read Pauline Bleach's excellent analysis of An Bord Pleanala's Planning Process / Environmental Impact Statement " Why M3 Planning permission is invalid"

back to top