Demo against NRA at Chester Beatty Library talk

by admin - TaraWatch Fri Aug 25, 2006 14:35 info at tarawatch dot org

The demonstration at the NRA conference, Routes to the Past, being held at Chester Beatty Library, will now take place outside the Library in Dublin Castle at noon, Thursday Aug 31st. A press/photocall will take place at 1.00pm and the demonstration will conclude at 2.00pm.

by cool j Fri Aug 25, 2006 17:40

That shower are just as Shameless as Noel Dempsey hosting FF's upcoming think-in on Irelands future energy strategy within a week of handing over yet more billions € of gas to his friends in Shell et al!!

by M. Ni Bhrolchain - Save Tara Sat Aug 26, 2006 00:50 muireann at indigo dot ie

Wonderful events in Meath for 'Heritage Week'. Not content with wrecking the Gabhra Valley now they want to show it off. If people are going along make sure to make it difficult, ask about the quality of the sites, what are they finding, anything huge, any 'show-stoppers'.

This is the notice from the website and appeared in Village Magazine yesterday.
Tour of M3 Excavations at Roestown

Location: Roestown, Roestown is located just off the N3, approx. 1km
from Dunshaughlin, Meath
Date: 28/08/2006 - 28/08/2006
Time: 2-3pm
Tour of M3 excavations at Dowdstown
Tour of M3 excavations at Dowdstown

Location: Dowdstown, Dowdstown is accessed off the Dowdstown-Ballinteer
road, west of Garlow Cross, Meath
Date: 29/08/2006 - 29/08/2006
Time: 2-3pm
Tour of M3 excavations at Castlefarm
Tour of M3 excavations at Castlefarm

Location: Castlefarm, Castlefarm is on the Maynooth Road, just outside
Dunboyne, Meath
Date: 30/08/2006 - 30/08/2006
Time: 2-3pm

Good of them to allow the public see their work.
Hope that some of you can turn up and ask questions about burial sites
in particular.
If people want details they can mail me privately.
Muireann

by nitpicker Sat Aug 26, 2006 00:56

Question? Surely the use of the harp in a logo of this type is illegal? Has this not been an issue with Guinness and other companies before?
BTW - I thought it was Tarawatch and not Save Tara? Can't these people make their minds up?

by Equally frustrated Sat Aug 26, 2006 01:38

Here we go again. Another case of 15 people and a horse. Or no horse?
Just when I thought I could leave this issue alone. When will someone please get a grip and organise a proper meeting on Tara, get the political angle going before the dammed election is over? Or is this all about publicity and ego? I suspect ....

by Robyn Sat Aug 26, 2006 02:07 peacefulwarriorprincess at yahoo dot com dot au

Dear Nitpicker and Equally Frustrated,

Actually as I understand it, TaraWatch and Save Tara are some of many groups working on preserving the heritage of Tara from the threat of the motorway, and I believe representatives from all groups will be at the demonstration in Dublin next Thursday.

I also understand each group is working in their own individual way to save Tara from the bulldozers.

I too am frustrated by there being a seemingly loose somewhat collective movement to save Tara, but nobody on the ground in Ireland appears to be organising the worldwide global campaign with a pinpointed focus on the political and legal battlefields. The only place where the battle to save Tara can be won.

I understand that a single individual, Mr Vincent Salafia has taken on the government in the legal battlefield, with the support of TaraWatch, but there appears to be no political party or independent political support behind him?

There seems to be plenty of support worldwide for Tara but nobody identified (and with the time and energy and euros) to be the worldwide "face" of saving Tara, or to be the Irish "General" of the Save Tara battle.

Not being in Ireland, I don't fully understand the reason for this. Or is it just not the Irish way. It certainly seems to have been the way of the Government and the NRA; they have very effective battalions of lawyers and platoons of spin-doctor publicists working on crossing all the legal hurdles and tackling the public opinion barriers.

Vigils, sit-ins, camps, demonstrations, benefit gigs and chatgroups are all fantastic, but they are only supporting and awareness raising activities providing publicity for where the real action takes place. L.A.W. Via the political arena.

Don't the Irish care about their precious heritage? Are there not any votes to be won by preserving Tara and finding another way to satisfy the dormitory towns of Dublin and their commuter needs?

Lets all unite and win, not divide and be conquered.

In equal frustration,

Robyn

by Country kid Sun Aug 27, 2006 18:54

Hi equally frustrated, i've thought as well of letting the issue go but i've decided to do whatever i can no matter how small to protect our heritage so please don't give up! we need more people like you to help! introduce yourself to those on the mailing lists,
http://www.hilloftara.info/

voice your concerns about the campaign so that we can learn from what you have to say and reorganise, write to your political representatives, write to the newspapers, hand out flyers make them yourself if necessary! suggest ideas to the tara mailing lists for what can be done, try to do something for Tara every day! sometimes you have to do things yourself to create a momentum but the more we work the more people will come on board so we won't have to work as hard! Save Tara!

by Equally frustrated Mon Aug 28, 2006 00:07

Hi Country Kid,
Yes, I've been doing all that but as I've said before I'm very disillusioned with the way the campaign is falling apart like a bad slow car crash. I keep an eye on the various lists but I'm not getting involved with any of them - too much bitching took place in the past.
As people in-fight, the bulldozers are doing their damage and God knows what is being destroyed.
let us all remember what happened in Waterford, the Woodstown site. A full Viking town was hidden from the general public and the Museum for the best part of 2 years. What might they be hiding at Tara?

by Andrew - The Tara Foundation Mon Aug 28, 2006 00:58

I would urge everybody who can to book for this conference, prepare a memo of facts and issues, and ask some very specific and pointed questions of the gurus at the NRA. In other words, hijack the NRA's "heritage week" propaganda. It is important to have people outside protesting and HANDING OUT INFORMATION LEAFLETS also, but we must have people in there grilling these crooks as well.

The first question I would ask would be along the lines of the following: "By what right is this agency, whose sole mission is to expedite the building of roads, and was granted extraordinary powers in the 1993 Roads Act to enable it to do so, given the power of deciding what becomes of Ireland's heritage when some on-the-make politician decides it would be nice to route a road through a heritage site to benefit friends and associates?"

You can book your place at the conference by e-mailing Lilian Butler of the NRA at lbutler@nra.ie or calling 01-6602581.

by Equally frustrated Mon Aug 28, 2006 01:13

Andrew,
It is the politicians, particularly those high up in Fianna Fail, who are responsible for this. They dismantled Duchas and the Dept so carefully put together by MD Higgins.
They, in the person of Noel Dempsey, pushed this route in Meath. Check connections to An Bord Pleanala, the NRA board and FF.
The NRA should be disbanded and replaced (if at all) by a NTA (National Transport Authority). Lets have proper PUBLIC TRANSPORT.
The NRA is to the department of Transport/Environment (there is no difference anymore) what the HSE is to the Department of Health - a cop-out for the corrupt politicos now in power.
These are the questions that should be asked of the FF/PD politicos looking for election in Meath in 2007 (if its not too late for Tara).
The NRA/ MCC are doing what they are told -

by Paula Geraghty Mon Aug 28, 2006 14:44

this seminar and is preparing questions, ask the relevant questions at the relevant sessions. Questions will not be taken later if they are not relevant as they are directed towards the previous panel of speakers.
There is a limited time for Q & A at these sessions. So think in a co-ordinated way about which questions are most important.

Last year at the NRA annual seminar I asked a question about foreign workers as one osteoarchaeologist (embarrassingly for the NRA's Chief archaeologist, who was chairing this session) described his post excavation team as 'my girls' who were all Polish ex waitresses. There is a letter in the summer issue of the very good magazine Archaeology Ireland reflecting these type of concerns of archaeologists, I'd recommend people to read it at their library or in the shop.

Foreign workers are always associated with low pay- what does that say about Irish archaeology?

by Andrew McGrath - The Tara Foundation Tue Aug 29, 2006 01:38

Paula, thanks for the information. I was not aware of that particular tidbit, but nothing surprises me any more with these people.

Equally frustrated, I agree with you. The vast State bureaucracy exists to dissolve responsibility for State decision-making. If no one is responsible, then we have ceased to have democracy. But it also works the other way: if responsibility is spread out among a vast number of pen-pushing bodies, then each of these little members is actually bearing its own portion of the weight of the stinking edifice. To extend the metaphor, if you then undermine one of these supporting members, the whole complex is to some degree weakened.

The NRA is merely a symptom, certainly. But these bodies are there to perpetuate the system, and as such must bear some of the responsibility. If democracy has ceased to have real meaning, then there is little point in expecting the 2007 elections to make any difference. Come 2007, people will be so confused and tired by the fusillade of political spiel (which is designed to make people switch off, CEASE TO CARE) that there will not be much hope of making an impact. That is, if the Gov't have not introduced their new way of winning elections by then, the eminently riggable electronic voting system.

People have been so conditioned in this country to adopt the "it's going to happen anyway, there's nothing you can do" attitude (our FFers even use it as a slogan, for heaven's sake!), they have been so trained by our good little media to obedience, that standing up for what is right seems to have lost all meaning. So, in my view, the only thing to be done is to attack these people at every turn, each one of these functionaries who is "only doing their job", and remind them in plain, simple language of what they are doing. That is the only way. They must not be let away with a single thing.

So, we (by that I mean not RTE's definition, as in "every like-minded right-thinker among you who surely agrees with me, well-paid script-reader", but every single person who has woken up to what these criminals have been getting away with) need to say at every chance we are given what needs to be said, and by any means possible.

High on the list of what needs to be said, and often, is: "The 2004 National Monuments (Amendment) Act removes any responsibility once held by the State to protect national monuments. The Act expressly states that archaeology and heritage are only factors in deciding whether to level a national monument. THERE IS NO LONGER ANY STATUTORY REQUIREMENT IN IRISH LAW THAT A NATIONAL MONUMENT MUST BE PRESERVED FOR ITS OWN SAKE. IN OTHER WORDS, ANY MONUMENT CAN AND WILL BE DESTROYED BY ACT OF THE MINISTER, AND THE MINISTER ALONE, IF THE MINISTER DECIDES IT IS "IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST".

What "the public interest" is, of course, is entirely up to the Minister to decide.

by anarchaeologist Tue Aug 29, 2006 08:44

Yeah sure it is Andrew. So why do you think that annoying archaeologists is going to advance your case one bit? The construction of the M3 isn't going to be stopped by picketing archaeological seminars; most of those attending are, I assure you, also against the road and take all your points on board (as I do) about the dilution of the National Monuments Act.

Attacking archaeologists is the easy option but it isn't going to get you anywhere. Who wants the road through Tara-Skryne? Why? Who's going to really rake it in here? While I do appreciate running a campaign on many fronts as a valuable tactic, do you not think the campaign should take on a more political trajectory at this stage?

This assumption that the world is being run by archaeologists, flattering as it may seem, is unfortunately not based on any reality I recognise. If I were of a more cynical deposition, I'd almost think that there's someone planted in the campaign to draw the flack away from those who stand to gain the most, by attacking those who are really only bit-part actors in the whole thing.

Why has this campaign failed to engage people the way the Shell to Sea has? Why are there 3 (4?) different groups all campaigning for the same thing? The campaign has go political before it will get anywhere. You can start by critically evaluating your obsession with archaeologists, a group you've never adequately engaged with from the beginning.

by Robyn Thu Aug 31, 2006 18:14 peacefulwarriorprincess at yahoo dot com dot au Australia

Politicians in Ireland must pay the price for not listening to the will of the people regarding Tara. Future generations of Irish and World Citizens will hold all environmental vanadals accountable. I understand 70% of Irish people surveyed want the motorway rerouted to preserve Tara.

Some depressing statistics below, no wonder the current government seems to be able to do what it wants with respect to desecrating Tara - based on this opinion poll at http://guthanphobail.net. How much chance is there for Tara to be an election issue I wonder. One interpretation is tha Tara's hopes perhaps lie in the smaller parties winning influence in next year's election.

Robyn

Recent Voter Opinion Poll

Fianna Fail: 35% [YES to current M3 route]
Pairti Daonlathach (Progressive Democrats): 2% [YES to current M3 route]

Fine Gael: 27% [YES to current M3 route]
Lucht Oibre (Labour): 12% NO to current M3 route?]
Sinn Fein: 10% [NO to current M3 route?]
Comhaontas Glas (The Greens): 7% [NO to current M3 route?]
Independents : 3% ?

by C Guerin Fri Sep 01, 2006 22:42 tarafoundation at eircom dot net

With respect, anarchaeologist, I fail to understand why you are isolating one particular thing Andrew suggested in order to portray him as "obsessed" with archaeologists. It's a red herring, frankly.

by Robyn Fri Sep 01, 2006 23:03 peacefulwarriorprincess at yahoo dot com dot au South Australia

Some excellent points are raised in this piece below. Ireland is a First World democratic country, yet its government is ignoring the will of the people and pressing ahead with plans to desecrate priceless history. Once lost, can never been regained, to the detriment of all future generations.

TaraWatch PRESS RELEASE

31 August 2006

"Demonstration Today at NRA Conference at Chester Beatty Library"

TaraWatch will hold a demonstration today from 12.00pm to 2.00pm at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle, where the National Roads Authority will hold their Routes to the Pastï conference.

The purpose of the demonstration is to protest the route of the M3 through the Tara complex, and express the views of 70% of Irish people surveyed last year by Red C Research, that the M3 should be rerouted away from Tara.

TaraWatch has made an official request to Europa Nostra for a special committee to be set up toinvestigate what is happening at Tara. Europe Nostra are the official host of European Heritage Days, which co-ordinates and funds Heritage Week in Ireland. We have received confirmation that they are actively considering this request. Europe Nostra made a damning report on the hotel that was recently built at Trim Castle.

Another goal is to highlight the mistreatment of Irish heritage by the Irish authorities, who have systematically removed legal protections for heritage and failed to enfore existing protections. The closure of Duchas, The National Heritage Service in 2003 and the 2004 amendment to the National Monuments Act, followed by the Critical Infrastructure Bill 2006 are all designed to increase the power of the Government and yake away citizend rights to object to the misuse of public money on
heritage destruction and badly planned motorways.

Vincent Salafia, TaraWatch member, said:

"During Heritage Week we want to highlight the fact that Government policy and practice is actually 'heritage weak', and falls squarely in favour of the developers in this country.

"The Government is our biggest developer, and the NRA is using our money to destroy our heritage, regardless of the democratic wishes of the people to save Tara.

"Tara is one of the true European sites in Ireland, and it is tragic that salvage excavations continue there during European Heritage Days.

ENDS

http://www.tarawatch.org
http://www.europanostra.org
http://www.hilloftara.info

by Robyn Fri Sep 01, 2006 23:25 peacefulwarriorprincess at yahoo dot com dot au South Australia

An archaeologist is either for the motorway or against it.

You can't be an archaeologist against the motorway and be actively employed in the gravy train hell-bent on digging it up. Its called sleeping with the enemy.

Archaeologists employed by the NRA are their employees first, and archaeologists second. No matter what their own personal justification, they are aiding and abetting the destruction of Tara.

I understand archaeologists have to eat too and have families and mortgages. But they can't have their cake AND eat it.

I see the NRA is already pitting archaeologist against archaeologist as each new discovery is made, the debate starts about whether it is "significant' enough to stop/divert to the motorway.

In my country, as there is a large groundswell of grass roots activists linked in with political parties and lawyers who are WONDERFUL at UNITING AGAINST THE COMMON ENEMY of environmental destruction. The battle is conducted on many pronged fronts to raising community awareness and funding, whilst simultaenously attacking on political and legal fronts. How I wish the Irish people were in a position to do likewise.

Where are the politicians against the motorway and why their silence?

Robyn

by Robyn Sun Sep 03, 2006 01:41 peacefulwarriorprincess at yahoo dot com dot au

I was extremely disappointed to learn that the vast majority of the 7 in 10 Irish people who oppose the proposed M3 route through the Tara valley were not able to attend the recent demonstration at the Chester Beattie Library in Dublin.

I am wondering about the state of health of democracy in Ireland. Do people feel so disengaged from their Government that they no longer feel they will be listened to if they attend a peaceful demonstration?

Or can the Government take that as a message that those 70% of Irish people will not translate their protective feelings for Tara into their voting decisions at the next election.

If the Tara/M3 situation took place in my country, people would be marching in the streets and shouting loud until the Government came to its senses. Generations of passionate Irish immigrants shaped the Australian character, now we are not afraid to speak our mind openly, clearly, publicly and with great persistence.

Robyn

by Equally frustrated Sun Sep 03, 2006 02:17

Robyn, you obviously don't appreciate the feelings held as regards some of the people involved in this issue. Some of those simply put off the public and ALL political parties. My family in Meath will have nothing to do with these people on past experience. Critical mass will not be achieved with people like this trying to run the show. Most people involved have given up as a result.
This issue is dead in Ireland as far as most people are concerned. It is completely dead in Meath and I cannot see anyone revitalising it. Tarawatch certainly wont as they will not be welcome after past disasters and alienations
I dont' know where you live or how involved you have been in this issue for the past years but I doubt you have any comprehension of how you come across ...

by Robyn Sun Sep 03, 2006 22:02 peacefulwarriorprincess at yahoo dot com dot au

I am very saddened by Equally Frustrated's report.

I live in Australia and have been involved in the save Tara campaign on and off for the past 18 months.

Of course my remoteness means I am reliant on the internet for information.

And how can I appreciate 'the feelings held' and know 'how I come across', UNLESS SOMEBODY TELLS ME and tells everybody else from overseas who cares, who is in the same boat as me wondering what the hell is going on!

So, the issue is dead in Ireland and especially Meath? People have given up? How tragic. I see some hostility towards Tarawatch but have no idea why. Past disasters and alienations? I know nothing of these. Some enlightenment would be appreciated.

How tragic if precious heritage such as Tara is ruined because us humans can't work cooperatively.

Robyn