Obituary:
NUI, Maynooth scholar Dr. Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin, (1955-2015) inspired an international following for the Save Tara Campaign.
See a dedicated tribute page HERE

Academic, inspiring teacher and defender of Tara
Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin: May 15, 1955 - April 14, 2015
Irish Times, May 16, 2015
Excerpt:
The academic, political activist and Tara campaigner Dr Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin, who has died aged 59, campaigned strongly for social justice issues through the Labour Party, working closely with Emmet Stagg, Michael D Higgins while he was minister for arts, heritage and the Gaeltacht, and on Maynooth Community Council.

“Her research interests were in women in early literature and history and genealogy but her very particular passion was for teaching, where she enthralled and challenged her students with her unique energy, knowledge and humour,” said her colleague Dr Mary Leenane of NUI Maynooth (NUIM).
She was raised in Salthill, Galway, one of three daughters of Cillian Ó Brolcháin, professor of physics at UCG, and Mairéad Coughlan, from Macroom, Co Cork, a domestic science teacher before her marriage... >>>more

If there were archaeological supervision such works would have been brought to a halt at the first sight of potential archaeological features. Heavy machinery, whether supervised or not, should not have been used or permitted in this area. Why is it necessary to commence such work under cover of darkness? This remains a mystery to all except, of course, those who sanctioned the work in the first instance. Health and Safety concerns aside, it is unlikely that someone will see freshly disturbed archaeological features in the dark – even if an archaeologist were present armed with miner's helmet and infra-red goggles.

The Minister also said in a statement on May 11th 2005: "The directions which I have given represent a measured approach. They are both comprehensive and onerous. They protect heritage." In fact, it appears that the Minister’s expressed wishes are being 'comprehensively' ignored. Save Tara is asking the NRA / MCC to halt all work immediately along this section of the M3 as
The PPP has not yet been signed. We ask that an enquiry be held into why such work was authorised and who was responsible for approving it.

Save Tara calls on opposition spokespersons to ask for this work to stop forthwith.
Contacts:
Dr Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin (The Save Tara website is offline)
Maireid Sullivan, Anam Cara for Tara campaign GlobalArtsCollective.org

Tara 'Arts Action' Alert!
Action Deadline
by Maireid Sullivan
22 April, 2007

We have until 22 April to contact all Irish graduates living abroad.
This "Art Action ALERT!" is reaching out to every citizen of Ireland, no matter where you may be in the world at the moment.

I am sure among your friends and contacts you know quite a few graduates of the National University of Ireland – UCD, UCC, UCG, Maynooth, NCAD, the teacher and nursing training colleges, and a few others. As this is a postal ballot, graduates can vote no matter where in the world they live as long as they are registered. Many registered initially at their parents' address after they graduated, but have long since moved.

If any of these people changed their addresses on the electoral role their votes would be very helpful in the upcoming Irish Senate elections. To do so, all they need to do is to send an email to records@nui.ie by the 22nd of April: with their name, year of graduation, degree, previous address of registration and current address, and their details will be changed in time to receive a ballot paper before the next election, which is expected in May or June, 2007.

Here is how the Irish Senate system works:
A General Election to Seanad Éireann (Irish Senate) must be held within 90 days of the dissolution of Dáil Éireann (the Irish government). Seanad Éireann is composed of 60 Members as follows:

- 11 nominated by the Taoiseach (Prime Minister)
- 43 elected by five panels representing vocational interests namely, Culture and Education, Agriculture, Labour, Industry and Commerce and Public Administration.
- SIX (6) elected by the graduates of two universities: - three each by the National University of Ireland and the University of Dublin (Trinity College).

In theory, Seanad Éireann does not recognise party affiliations. However, as the electorate for the panels is made up of the Members of the incoming Dáil, the outgoing Seanad, county councils and county borough councils, the composition of Seanad Éireann, including the Taoiseach's nominees, will tend to reflect party strengths in Dáil Éireann.

The Constitution provides that not more than two Senators may be members of the Government and this provision has been exercised twice in the last 60 years.

Please forward this "Art Action ALERT!" to all of your Irish networks.

In good faith!
Maireid Sullivan
Anam Cara for Tara is an initiative of the Global Arts Collective
Back to top

St. Patrick's Day 2008 Flyer copy

Cry 'Save Tara' for St Patrick's day
This year as always, the Irish luminaries fly around the world wearing their shamrocks on their sleeves. But beneath the jovial smiles and the chorus of 'its great day for being Irish', a harsher reality stalks the Aul Sod of Ireland.

The valley between the Hill of Tara and Hill of Skryne, an ancient landscape over 7000 years old and considered the cradle of Irish civilisation is being severed by the new M3 motorway.

The Transport Minister visiting Australia for St Patricks day has never been able to answer three simply questions. Why did he allow the Planning Bord to,

1. Accept an argument proffered by the Project Archaeologist based on "Core Zone" archaeological information from Conor Newman's work which he told them at the time were merely project budget markings? Conor Newman is the world expert on Tara and director of the Discovery Bord, Ireland's expert Archaeological body's Tara Project. Both testified at the planning tribunal that the route chosen was the least desirable and disastrous for the Tara landscape.

2. Accept the Council decision not to supply the details or the information that was needed by objectors. The Planning Board agreed they had a "Customer Service" problem but that was not their concern. The law requires reasons why routes were chosen though not the details that may allow these premises to be challenged. Apparently summary matrix's that do not represent anything (I kid you not) are enough.

3. Accept the dismissal the Public consultation section after it was proved that the Councils figures were pretty much rigged and the public had in fact chosen a route outside the valley as "it was not legal requirement"

For 7 years the Battle of Tara has raged on as ordinary Irish people defend their sacred valley, one of those people, Seamus Heaney, has a noble prize for Literature.

We are asking all Irish People, their descendants and friends to show support this St Partick's day by including Save Tara in the flags, costumes, badges, banners and sashes.

Anam Cara for Tara is an initiative of the Global Arts Collective

SAVE TARA!
by Maireid Sullivan
Sunday, 16 March, 2008, 3pm
Gathering on the steps of the State Library of Victoria

This year as always, Irish luminaries fly around the world wearing their shamrocks on their sleeves. But beneath the jovial smiles and the chorus of "it's a great day for the Irish" -- a harsh reality stalks the Aul Sod of Ireland.

Why is the Irish Government allowing the valley between the Hill of Tara and Hill of Skryne, in County Meath, an ancient archaeological landscape more than 7000 years old (the cradle of Irish civilisation and the place where St. Patrick is said to have converted the Irish to Christianity, which launched the beautiful traditions of Celtic Christianity), to be destroyed by a double-tolled freeway?

As the Irish Nobel laureate, Seamus Heaney has said, this is "ruthless desecration."

The Irish Transport Minister, Noel Dempsey (the youngest Chairman of Meath County Council -1986/87), who is visiting Australia for St Patrick's Day, accompanied by both the current Chairman, and the Manager of Meath County Council, has never been able to explain why:

~ An argument by the Project Archaeologist, based on archaeological information by Tara world expert Conor Newman that the route chosen was the least desirable and disastrous for the Tara landscape.
~ The Council decision not to supply the details or the information that was needed by objectors was wrong. The Planning Board agreed it had a "customer service" problem but that was not its concern.
~ The dismissal of the public consultation section because "it was not a legal requirement" after it was proven that the Council's figures were rigged and the public chose a route outside the valley.

We are asking all Irish people, their descendants and friends to show support by becoming informed, informing others and writing letters to the Irish government. This shouldn't be a political issue. It is a question of respect for heritage.

Anam Cara for Tara arts action campaign
an initiative of the GlobalArtsCollective.org
Learn more:
http://www.GlobalArtsCollective.org/acf/about.htm
Back to top

Cry 'Save Tara'
Letter to the Editor, Irish Echo
By Maireid Sullivan
Published 26 March 2008.

Time is not on Ireland's side! In the St. Pat's Day issue, the Irish Echo published an article titled "Critics of Tara Road 'misled': Dempsey", in which the visiting Irish Transport Minister Noel Dempsey's "dig" at Irish Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney revealed a lack of reverence for Irish heritage. In response to Professor Heaney's statement that the development of the M3 through the Tara Skryne Valley is a "ruthless desecration", Dempsey said, "I've never known Seamus to be an expert in the planning process."

A growing number of published reports reveal that Minister Dempsey's expertise in planning is failing the risk-management test -- through not only a general lack of planning expertise, and planning for urgent climate change compliance, but in maintaining due process of Irish law. For example, "The 'Gateway to Meath' industrial park plan has been knocked back on grounds of illegal process and pressure by lobbyists, while Meath Co. Council's approval for 745 houses to be built on the site of the Battle of the Boyne, very near Newgrange, is currently being appealed.

Minister Dempsey celebrates the fact that he was the youngest Chairman of the Meath County Council - 1986-87. He gives the impression that he is of the school of economics that puts real estate speculation on an untouchable pedestal. For example, Raymond Potterton, of Raymond Potterton & Co. auctioneers and estate agents, specialising in residential property in Meath (www.raymondpotterton.com) was appointed to the Board of the National Roads Authority (NRA) on 12th February 2002, by then Minister for the Environment Noel Dempsey. And, the current Chairman of the NRA is Peter Malone, -- also Chairman of CB Richard Ellis, Ireland, one of the largest real estate developers in the world.

In the Echo interview, Minister Dempsey repeated the now infamous pro-M3 line, "There is not a place in Co. Meath where you could stick a spade in the ground without hitting something of potential archaeological interest." However, there is an alternative shorter and cheaper route, and one that will not violate National Heritage sites, to the west of the Hill of Tara, along the disused old Navan Rail line.

In several national polls, the vast majority of Irish people have repeatedly shown that they do not want the M3 to go through the Tara Skryne Valleys. And, in support of friends and family living in Ireland, a growing number of Irish ex-pats are expressing serious concerns re. the current Irish government's apparent lack of interest in Ireland's great heritage and cultural destiny. As Dublin campaigner Anne Madden le Brocquy stated, "Should our Government persist in its planned construction, then its opportunistic insensibility will never be forgotten by the vast numbers of us who will be deprived of our inestimable heritage."

The Irish Government's FLOOD / Mahon Tribunal of Inquiry Into Certain Planning Matters and Payments, commonly known as the Mahon Tribunal in honor of its current chairman, and known previously as the Flood Tribunal, was established by the Irish Government on November 4, 1997. Page 2 of the The Flood Tribunal Report says this: "On the 31st March 1996, the Sunday Business Post published an article by a journalist, Mr. Frank Connolly, under the heading, 'Fianna Fáil Politician paid off by Developers.' The ramifications of this ongoing inquiry are still playing out, as seen in the sudden resignation of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Prime Minister of Ireland, with International headlines such as, "Irish prime minister resigns amid probes."

Since the real estate market leads the economy, I predict that when the growing recession hits harder, developers will be quick to say that development creates jobs. "Do you want jobs?" they'll ask. They will argue that, to provide those jobs, they must build housing and industrial estates along the many new superhighways, (attracting more toll paying drivers in the process). According to the Irish Ministry of Transport 2021 planning agenda, these freeways will fan out from Dublin, across Ireland, -- such as the M3 through the Hill of Tara environs. And, the Irish people, out of desperation, may well allow them to continue to desecrate their heritage, pollute their environment, and pour concrete over prime agricultural lands. A new book "Confident New Ireland", describes Ireland as "set on Americanization". But during the boom years, the country lost the link between the generation of national wealth on the one hand, and the ability to relate it to the needs of ordinary people. Part of the problem is the Government's continued focus on growth while abdicating accountability in important matters. Now the money is all gone and the social services, infrastructure, and economic stabilizers have not been put in place, and we must struggle to protect our heritage.

Yes, influential speculators and developers paid farm prices for the land along the route of the M3, long before the route was chosen. This is why the Irish government has flatly refused to take the shorter cheaper route to the West of the Hill of Tara, along the old Navan Rail line. The value of that land will already have multiplied by a huge factor because it is earmarked for development.

Time may not be on Ireland's side but those of us who truly love our heritage will do our best to prevent the ruthless desecration of our heritage!

In good faith!
Maireid Sullivan
Anam Cara for Tara arts action campaign,
an initiative of the GlobalArtsCollective.org

Back to top

‘Tara Road’ opponents to launch Oz protest
The Australian Irish Echo
March 12 – 25, 2008
(Front page feature)
By Aaron Dunne

GROUPS opposed to the construction of a motorway near the historic Hill of Tara in Co Meath are planning to picket a range of Irish events in Australia over St Patrick’s Day.

Save Tara campaigners have planned protests in Melbourne and Sydney to coincide with the arrival of a number of Meath County Council officials and Irish Transport Minister Noel Dempsey, who is also from Meath.

A group called globalartscollective.org is running a worldwide campaign for St Patrick’s Day in conjunction with the Save Tara campaign in Ireland. Convenor Mairéid Sullivan, who is based in Melbourne, has told the Irish Echo of the group’s plans to attend events in their bid to promote awareness of ongoing resistance to the planned routing of the M3 motorway through the historic site.

Sullivan, and Co Louth native Pauline Bleach, who runs the Tara Appreciation Society in Sydney, have plans to make their presence felt at a host of events that will be attended by the visiting Irish politicians, including the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Sydney.

The Melbourne group will be targeting specific events in the city where the councillors and minister will be in attendance, while the Tara Appreciation Society has even entered a float into the Sydney St Patrick’s Day Parade to promote awareness about the Hill Of Tara and the Skryne Valley.

“We’re putting in a parade entry called Tara – 7,000 Years Of Irish History as part of the Tara Appreciation Society,” Bleach said. “It’s a non-political event so we will be making no mention of the Save Tara campaign. We want to celebrate the history of this valley where so much of our history took place,” Bleach told the Irish Echo.

“We’re not rabble rousers,” Mairéid Sullivan said. “We just want to bring attention to this very important matter. We’ll be there at everything the politicians are at to get our point across. There’s still time to save Tara.”

For many long years the battle to save Tara has raged on as ordinary Irish people have tried in vain to defend this sacred valley.

The Celtic City of Tara was a royal astrological and ritual centre. The planned
road cuts through the centre of this city. If the road goes ahead we will loose
this world heritage site forever.

"Tara is believed to be 6000 years old, and predates the pyramids."
- Dr. Muireann Ní Bhrolchain, Historian, NUI, Maynooth, and founder of SaveTara.com

Tara is central to the cultural heritage of the Irish people. Many of its complex archeological monuments, numbering at least 141, known, identified sites such as Baronstown, Rath Lugh, Roestown, Lismullin and Soldier Hill, and including newly discovered underground chambers and passages possibly belonging to the Early Christian period, have been destroyed by a government entrusted with protecting them.

In a late 2007 Irish Times Poll on Tara, 82% voted YES! to the question: ‘Do you think the Hill of Tara should be added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites?’ The European Union says the decision to place the M3 freeway along this route was flawed and flouts directives designed to protect our heritage. Now it is feared that this move is a first step to opening this previously untouchable protected area to development. By contrast, governments of third world countries are going to great lengths to restore and preserve and protect their monuments.

What’s more, a shorter, cheaper and archaeologically superior route lies outside the historic valley, along the old Navan rail line to the West of the Hill of Tara, which would be a straight run, rather than the circuitous and in this case unnecessarily LONGER route around the Hill of Tara.

This area, to the west of the hill of Tara, is a much more environmentally friendly location (if such a place can be said to exist in all of Ireland) for a new roadway, and would make for a shorter commute and less traffic through an already congested convergence of roadways.

Two-thirds of the Irish public when polled supported this alternative route. The existing N3 is an average two-lane road, built within the existing contours and shape of the valley. However, the M3 is radically different.

Unlike the current and established road system the four-lane motorway and major floodlit interchange will not respect the topographical contours of the landscape but will be ramped or gouged through the valley as required to meet motorway construction standards. And, in subsequent years, industrial parks and housing estates will inevitably spring-up around the purpose built interchange.., a little over 1.5km to the north of Tara's 'Banqueting Hall'. (The Geophysical Survey of the M3 Toll-Motorway Corridor, from Journal of the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society, 2005).

Tara, at present, is surrounded by green fields in the heart of rich farming land. The impact of building the M3 through Tara is truly irreparable, because settlement and industrialisation will inevitably follow, since Tara is so close to Dublin. If the National Roads Authority (NRA) has its way Tara will be a tiny hill, surrounded by spreading urbanisation. It is also important to note that the major floodlit interchange, only 1.5 km from the hill itself, would take up more than 25 acres (10 hectares) in size. We already know that a shopping mall developer purchased 200 acres on all four corners of the proposed interchange, long before the M3 go-ahead.

Suffice it to say, many laws have been broken in planning for this route, including Meath County Council planning guidelines. The National Monuments Amendment Act 2004 was passed to support the construction of PPP (Public Private Partnership) toll roads, destroying historic places of great natural beauty.

Many share the suspicion that developers are behind many inexplicable development decisions. The Irish Government's refusal to discuss the flaws in the planning process and purchase of lands by developers along the many new freeway routes crisscrossing Ireland helps fuel rumours that developer's money is behind the government's intransigence. The expectation is that developers will be ready and waiting to pounce with plans for development along the route when the current real estate boom-bust cycle runs its course. According to a 1980 Lincoln Institute of Land Policy report Land into Cities it takes 15 years between speculative purchase of land, at farm prices, and sale of land to developers at inflated prices. This time-line takes us right up to the next expected real estate boom in the mid 2020s. The Chairman of the NRA, Peter Malone is also Chairman of one of the biggest Real Estate Development company in the world: CB Richard Ellis, Ireland.

Anam Cara for Tara arts action campaign
an initiative of the GlobalArtsCollective.org

PPP Rorting: a "windfall situation" for NTR
by Maireid Sullivan
March 2010
On Feb. 1, 2010, the Irish Independent reported a fine example of PPP (private-public partnership) rorting:

A PRIVATE company is set to reap a massive €1.15bn windfall from the M50 West-Link toll bridges it built for just €58m, the Irish Independent has learned. National Toll Roads (NTR) almost recouped the entire construction costs in 2007 alone, when it took in €46m in tolls from motorists. And it is going to get up to €50m per year for the next decade in compensation from the State, which bought out the notorious tolled link in 2008. >>> more

The article revealed that the State did not insert a termination clause in the West-Link contract, and as a consequence was in a weak position when it wanted to buy out National Toll Roads (NTR) in 2008. National Roads Authority (NRA) chief executive Fred Barry said he agreed the contract had led to a "windfall situation" for NTR, while a spokesperson for the Department of Transport said it was akin to "winning the lotto". According to the Independent report, at the time of the State’s buyout of the West Link Toll Bridge in 2008, the chairman of NTR, Tom Roche Jnr commented that the buy-out had decimated the company's Irish toll business "albeit at a good price".

The Irish Government's ongoing Tribunal of Inquiry Into Certain Planning Matters and Payments, commonly known as the Mahon Tribunal in honor of its chairman, and previously as the Flood Tribunal, which was established in 1997, continues to hear evidence that political donations have been paid, in cash and via deposits to offshore bank accounts, to several named Irish politicians, who’ve since become known as the Thieves of Tara.

An excerpt from the first Flood Tribunal report, page 2, reveals how the Tribunal came to be established:

On the 3rd July 1995, a notice appeared in two Irish daily newspapers offering a £10,000 reward to persons providing information leading to the conviction of persons involved in corruption in connection with the planning process. Donnelly Neary Donnelly, Solicitors of Newry, Co. Down, placed this notice on behalf of unnamed clients. This notice was the subject of much public comment at the time of its insertion, and subsequently, both in the print media and in Dail Eireann."

The Irish government has yet to explain why they selected the Tara route when it is widely known:

• An argument by the Project Archaeologist, based on archaeological information by Tara world expert Conor Newman that the route chosen was the least desirable and most disastrous for the Tara landscape;

• The Council decision not to supply the details or the information that was needed by objectors was wrong. The Planning Board agreed it had a ‘customer service’ problem but that was not its concern;

• The dismissal of the public consultation section because ‘it was not a legal requirement’ after it was proven that the Council's figures were rigged and the public chose a route outside the valley.

Internationally, climate change and energy commentators are calling on governments to scrap all airport and road network expansion forthwith, because there will be plenty of spare capacity when we reach Peak Oil, in the near future!

American energy economist Dr. Roger Bezdek had this to say,

I recommend that any proposed improvement or expansion projects (airports and roads) be subject to oil vulnerability analysis. How viable are these plans, not next year or the year after, or five years from now, but 10, 15, 20 years or in 30 years does it make economic sense to invest billions and billions of dollars. The point is that you have to do a vulnerability assessment as due diligence.
(More information on this is available from the Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas.)