CRITICAL! Letter-writing campaign to Save the Hill of Tara

Smithsonian magazine published an article in the March 2009 issue on the Hill of Tara being endangered by the M3 motorway, and included Tara in a list of 15 Must See Sites, before they disappear:

Endangered Site: The Hill of Tara, Ireland; A new tollway threatens the archaeologically rich complex that is the spiritual heart of the country

Please write a letter to the editor of Smithsonian at LettersEd@si.edu

IRISH NEWSPAPER STORIES

Here are related stories from Irish newspapers. Please write a letter to the editor of the papers.

Irish Times: Tara endangered, says Smithsonian
- Write to lettersed@irishtimes.ie

Irish Independent: Smithsonian puts Hill of Tara on list of endangered must-sees
- Write to independent.letters@unison.independent.ie

Irish News: Seat of kings included in must-see endangered list
- Write to letters@irishnews.com

Irish Examiner: Top US museum names Tara 'must-see' site
- Write to letters@examiner.ie

Herald: Smithsonian joins fight to save the Hill of Tara
- Write to herald.letters@independent.ie

MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT - JOHN GORMLEY

Minister's Statement on Tara and UNESCO
- Write to minister@environ.ie

Minister's Review of Ireland's List of UNESCO sites / Expert Advisory Panel
- Write to worldheritagetentativelist@environ.ie

GREEN PARTY

Green Party of Ireland
info@greenparty.ie

- Trish Forde-Brennan, Chair
fordebren@esatclear.ie

UNESCO

UNESCO - United Nations Educational and Scientific Organisation
wh-info@unesco.org

Francesco Bandarin - Director of the World Heritage Centre
F.Bandarin@unesco.org

Mechtild Rossler - Chief of Section Europe Unit
m.rossler@unesco.org

ICOMOS

ICOMOS - International Council on Monuments and Sites
secretariat@icomos.org

Gustavo ARAOZ - President of ICOMOS
garaoz@usicomos.org

ICOMOS Ireland
info@icomos.ie

Grellan D. Rourke - President of ICOMOS Ireland
grellan.rourke@opw.ie

ICOMOS UK
admin@icomos-uk.org

Lord Donald Hankey - President of ICOMOS UK
hankeyd@ghkint.com

SMITHSONIAN STORIES:

Endangered Site: The Hill of Tara, Ireland - 2009

Ireland Unleashed - 2005

TARAWATCH

TaraWatch.org
info@tarawatch.org
+353-87-132-3365

Smithsonian Magazine: Endangered Site: The Hill of Tara, Ireland

A new tollway threatens the archaeologically rich complex that is the spiritual heart of the country

Endangered Site: The Hill of Tara, Ireland

Smithsonian magazine, March 2009
By Amanda Bensen

"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. 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.

In more recent history, the hill was the site of Daniel "the Liberator" O'Connell's 1843 "monster meeting," a massive political demonstration that rallied some 750,000 people to the cause of repudiating the country's union with Britain. Thousands of people still gather on its crest on midsummer's eve, both for the panoramic view and what one visitor calls "the sense you get there of being close to something holy."

"Tara is a part of the Irish psyche," says George Eogan, a retired Dublin archaeologist who led excavations near the hill in the 1960s. "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.