Professor George Eogan TaraWatch interview at Rath Lugh, 21 March 2008

Interview with professor George Eogan on Rath Lugh national monument, Hill of Tara.

By Vincent Salafia, TaraWatch, March 21 2008.

The National Roads Authority have just erected a metal fence, to keep protesters from interfering with M3 motorway construction works, which are directly impacting the Rath Lugh national monument, and severing the archaeological complex.

George Eogan

Director of Knowth Research Project and Professor Emeritus of Archaeology, University College, DublinGeorge Eogan (Ph.D., Trinity College, Dublin) is a leading expert in the archaeology of Ireland, with particular interest in the Neolithic and Late Bronze Ages. He is the Director of the Knowth Research Project and has been excavating at Knowth for more than 40 years as part of his investigation of the Passage Tomb builders in Ireland and Western Europe. Professor Eogan is a native of Ireland and has taught and lectured extensively on the country’s archaeology. Now Professor Emeritus of Archaeology, University College, Dublin, his archaeological research has led to approximately 90 papers and nine books, including The Accomplished Art: Gold and Gold-working in Britain and Ireland During the Bronze Age (Oxbow Books, 1994), Knowth and the Passage Tombs of Ireland (Thames and Hudson, 1986), and (with M. Herity) Ireland in Prehistory (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977).

Saint patrick Wears SAVE TARA t-shirt in Dublin parade

Saint Patrick wearing SAVE TARA t-shirt in Dublin Parade. Photograph courtesy of Niall Carson, PA.

Cities and towns put final touches to big day plans

Irish Times - 17 march 2008
ALISON HEALY

FIVE DAYS of St Patrick's Festival events will culminate in Ireland's biggest ever St Patrick's Day parade in Dublin today. More than 3,000 participants will take part in this year's parade, which will begin snaking its way through the city centre at noon. It will start at Parnell Square North and travel down O'Connell Street, passing the grandstand at the GPO, from where President Mary McAleese will be watching. The parade will then go up Westmoreland Street, turn on to Dame Street and up to Christchurch Cathedral before ending at St Patrick's Cathedral. The parade may move a little quicker this year as Olympian athlete Eamonn Coghlan will be Grand Marshal. This year marks 25 years since he broke the world record for the indoor mile.

The spectacle is expected to take two hours to wind its way along the 3km route and organisers estimate that it will attract more than 500,000 people. The parade will also be broadcast live on RTÉ. Some 16 marching bands from countries such as the US, Japan and Italy will provide entertainment. There will be 11 pageants from street theatre companies and theatre groups from Ireland and further afield. The Céilí Mór, which is being billed as the world's largest outdoor Irish music and dance event, will then get under way at Earlsfort Terrace at 2.30 pm.

Meanwhile, in Cork some 50 floats will take part in the parade which will start at 1pm at the Parnell Place end of the South Mall. Roads will be closed in the area from noon to 5pm. Belfast's St Patrick's Day celebrations will centre on a carnival parade, which leaves City Hall at 12pm. It will be followed by a free concert in the 5,000-capacity Custom House Square at 1pm.  The Galway parade starts at Dominick Street at 12.30pm, before making its way to the city's Eyre Square. The parade will feature a traditional Nigerian tribe from the Association of Nigerians in Galway, Bog People from Macnas, a Norse tribe and boat from the Galway Traveller Movement, and a tribe of "St Patricks with snakes" from the Brothers of Charity.

The Limerick city parade will begin at 12 noon and will be grand marshalled by the Munster rugby team's most capped player Anthony Foley. You're a Star finalist Leanne Moore will also travel home from Dublin to take part in the event. The theme of this year's parade is "The United Colours of Limerick" and multi-cultural groups with origins in Poland, Nigeria and the Philippines will take part. Waterford's St Patrick's Day parade takes place on the City Quays from 1pm. The parade in Dingle, in Co Kerry will be the first of the day in the country as it will be held pre-dawn as usual. The Tralee parade kicks off at noon on JJ Sheehy Road. Members of the Kingdom's All-Ireland football winning team will carry the Sam Maguire trophy along the parade and the town square will feature traditional music over the weekend.

The Killarney parade will begin at Ross Road at 2pm and will be led by Antarctic explorer Pat Falvey. Listowel marked its 30th annual St Patrick's Day parade yesterday with contributions by several sporting groups including the Kerry County GAA club champions, the local Feale Rangers. Other parades were held in Kilflynn and Causeway.  Durrow, Co Laois also beat the rush by holding its 18th century "non-motorised" St Patrick's Day parade yesterday. The village is celebrating its 300th anniversary and this was reflected in the floats which included 18th century themed carriages with locals dressed in period costumes.

Meanwhile, the TaraWatch group which is campaigning against the route of the M3 motorway in Meath, has criticised the failure of Navan Meath Chambers of Commerce and Meath County Council to hold a St Patrick's Day parade.

"The same people who are championing the Government-sponsored destruction of Tara, are also telling us that Saint Patrick is no longer worth celebrating," Vincent Salafia of TaraWatch said.

Tara protesters parade in Sydney

Irish Times - 17 March 2008

John Ingram, an Aboriginal man with Irish heritage, led the parade dressed as St Patrick in Sydney, writes Pádraig Collins.

A GROUP opposed to the construction of a motorway near the Hill of Tara in Co Meath paraded past the Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey at yesterday's St Patrick's Day parade in Sydney. The Tara Appreciation Society's parade entry featured about 10 people behind a banner saying "Tara - 7,000 years of Irish History". "It's great, wonderful democracy. I was delighted to see Tara promoted," Mr Dempsey told The Irish Times.

In contrast to the rest of the marchers, who were mostly wearing green, the Tara Appreciation Society members stood out by mostly wearing black. The group's website said their lack of numbers in the parade was "due to approaches to the [St Patrick's Day parade] committee". "While we wanted this to be a festive community effort allowing families, etc, to join us in celebrating Tara's unique history . . . we have now restricted who can join us in the parade."

The protest has not led to a change of heart though. "There are procedures that are decided upon," Mr Dempsey said. This year's parade, which was watched by a crowd of about 10,000, was led by John Ingram, an Aboriginal man with Irish heritage, who was dressed as St Patrick. All 32 counties were represented in the parade, as were Irish cultural organisations, Sydney GAA clubs and local pipe bands.

"This year was as good as it has ever been," said Tommy McAdam from Co Monaghan, who has lived in Sydney since 1956. "There were more floats than I've seen before and there's a great crowd watching too." Also enjoying the parade was Sister Christina O'Connor of the Sisters of St Joseph, whose mother was from Wexford and father from Clare. "The Patrician Brothers and World Youth Day sections were very good," said Sr Christina.

The Catholic Church's World Youth Day, which is held every three years, is being held in Sydney in July. Swiss man Racheed Ahmed was wearing a Kerry jersey while watching the parade. "One of the Irish girls I work with gave it to me," he said. "We are the only west Europeans where I work. I've been to every St Patrick's Day parade in Sydney since 1996."

Seamus Heaney condemns M3 motorway 'descecration' of Tara

Related stories from TaraWatch:

The Gaurdian: Heaney hits at 'desecration' of sacred Tara
BBC News: Heaney hits out over 'tara over Tara'
RTE News: Tara called 'endangered site' (video)
The Independent: Ancient Hill of Tara is put on 'crisis list' backed by WMF over road
The Irish Times: Hill of Tara set for endangered list
The Telegraph: British and Irish sites join global danger list The Gaurdian: Music hall and prehistoric site on endangered list
RTE News: Protestors play harps outside Dáil
Irish Examiner (USA): Once Through Tara's Hall

Heaney claims motorway near Tara desecrates sacred landscape

The Irish Times - Saturday, March 1, 2008

POET AND Nobel laureate Séamus Heaney has described the M3 motorway as a ruthless desecration of the sacred landscape around the Hill of Tara, in a BBC documentary to be broadcast today at 11.30am on Radio Ulster, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor

In the same programme, Dr Jonathan Foyle, British chief executive of the World Monuments Fund, which placed Tara on its endangered sites list last year, likened the motorway to the destruction by Afghanistan's Taliban regime in 2001 of the Bamiyan Buddhas.

In his interview with BBC reporter Diarmaid Fleming, Prof Heaney said the motorway "literally desecrates an area - I mean the word means to desacralise' and, for centuries, the Tara landscape and the Tara sites have been regarded as part of the sacred gound".

Referring to the 1916 Proclamation having summoned the Irish people "in the name of the dead generations", he said: "If ever there was a place that deserved to be preserved in the name of the dead generations from pre-historic times . . . it was Tara".

Prof Heaney added: "I suppose Tara means something equivalent to me to what Delphi means to the Greeks or maybe Stonehenge to an English person or Nara in Japan . . .It conjures up what they call in Irish dúchas, a sense of belonging a sense of patrimony, a sense of an ideal.

"The traces on Tara are in the grass, in the earth. They aren't spectacular like temple ruins in Greece but they are about origin, they're about beginning, they're about the mythological, spiritual source - something that gives the country its distinctive spirit."

He recalled that WB Yeats, George Moore and Arthur Griffith had written a letter to The Irish Times (below) complaining that the British Israelites, who thought the Ark of the Covenant was buried at Tara, were desecrating a "consecrated landscape" by digging there.So, I thought to myself, if a few holes in the ground made by amateur archaeologists was a desecration, what's happening to that whole countryside being ripped up [for the M3] is certainly a much more ruthless piece of work," Prof Heaney said.

According to Dr Foyle, the entire Tara complex "is the equivalent of Stonehenge, Westminster Abbey for its royal associations and Canterbury for its Christian associations all rolled into one" yet it was being destroyed "to shave 20 minutes off a journey time".

LISTEN TO BBC TARA DOCUMENTARY, AIRED 01 MARCH 2008