Solidarity with Tara in Ireland — trip reportback

A group of us from Brighton went over to Ire­land recent­ly to sup­port the Irish pro­test­ers attempt, to halt the work on the M3 Motor­way.

The 50km, four lane stretch includes a huge, 53 acre inter­change, with two mas­sive orbits and 10 fly­over bridges, the con­struc­tion has already divert­ed gabhra rivers his­tor­i­cal water­ways, and heavy machin­ery have bull­dozed ancient tombs and graves with­in the sacred val­ley.

Whilst the mon­ey spin­ning, toll roads are being built by Dick Cheyneys’ Hal­libur­ton com­pa­ny, SIAC and Fer­rovial are the real crim­i­nal com­pa­nies respon­si­ble for most of the car­nage.

If the motor­way is not stopped or re-rout­ed it will destroy one the most impor­tant archae­o­log­i­cal land­scapes in Europe, and wipe out a huge amount of Ire­lands cul­ture, his­to­ry, iden­ti­ty and her­itage.

On the 15th of march we arrived at the direct action camp, which is sit­u­at­ed on top of the ancient mon­u­ment of Rath Lugh. This is one of 150 sacred sites with­in the Tara Com­plex, and one of the 43 that has been wiped out along the route of the motor­way.

The pro­test­ers have built a num­ber of walk­ways link­ing tree hous­es togeth­er, and built var­i­ous lock on’s, the secu­ri­ty have been heavy hand­ed in remov­ing the pro­test­ers from the Rath Lugh Site but oth­er camps are being set up along the route to con­tin­ue the bat­tle to save the Tara.

Equip­ment and peo­ple are urgent­ly need­ed!!

One of the first things I noticed when I got there was the intim­i­da­tion and the threats of vio­lence from the secu­ri­ty, they had met­al bars and lumps of wood and they were ready to lash out at any­one who tried to phys­i­cal­ly stop the con­struc­tion.
I still went dig­ger div­ing every­day, but because I had a cam­corder with me this act­ed as a deter­rent against their assault.

When we arrived Lisa Feeney AKA “Squeek” had just come out of a 20ft deep tun­nel, after being down there for 60hrs. Her father and uncle were guilt trip­ping her say­ing she was self­ish and she was going to die. So Lisa agreed to come out of the tun­nel but only if a 12 point agree­ment was signed between her-self and the Nation­al Roads Author­i­ty, the N.R.A rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kevin O’Rourke signed the agree­ment which stat­ed that all work would be stopped for one month, after Lisa came out the tun­nel the agree­ment was breached by the NRA with­in 24hrs, they lied and claimed no agree­ment made.

The pro­test­ers will now make an appli­ca­tion for an emer­gency injunc­tion at the supreme high court, because of the dis­crep­an­cies over the Com­pul­so­ry Pur­chase Order on Rath Lugh, which is cur­rent­ly break­ing the nation­al mon­u­ments act of 2004.

The N.RA. have admit­ted that they have been work­ing off inac­cu­rate maps since the plan­ning process, but still con­tin­ue to claim that they are not dam­ag­ing the 2000 yr old fort.

Archae­ol­o­gists have con­tra­dict­ed this by stat­ing that the motor­way will cut open the hill­side leav­ing it entire­ly unsta­ble, as it is built on an esker — this is a ridge made of small rocks left behind by the glac­i­er that formed the local hills and val­leys since the last age. It’s pret­ty obvi­ous that if you dam­age the foun­da­tion or the esker you will also dam­age the mon­u­ment.

Dur­ing the vis­it I went to anoth­er oth­er sol­i­dar­i­ty camp, which is on the foot of the hill of Tara. This is where a sacred fire has been burn­ing since sum­mer sol­stice 2006, peo­ple have come from all over the world to keep the fire burn­ing, although no-one lives there offi­cial­ly. Peo­ple take part in a rota-sys­tem, but recent­ly the O.P.W (office for pub­lic works) which is the gov’t body respon­si­ble for look­ing after Irish her­itage and the pub­lic land have giv­en a notice for the peo­ple to leave the area with­in sev­en days.

The peo­ple who real­ly care for the land are refus­ing to leave, they are a diverse group of local artists, musi­cians, and mem­bers of the pub­lic, that are tak­ing the respon­si­bil­i­ty to cre­ate a world her­itage park, their aim is to pro­mote the poten­tial of the area for edu­ca­tion, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and her­itage. The group cur­rent­ly holds talks lec­tures, and work­shops on crafts and his­to­ry.

An offi­cial pro­pos­al for the world her­itage park is being cre­at­ed, but unfor­tu­nate­ly it has to be your gov’t that nom­i­nates mon­u­ments for world her­itage sta­tus. The Irish peo­ple can not count on their gov’t to do that, so the peo­ple want to illus­trate this them­selves. In hope that peo­ple pow­er will demand that Tara gets the respect it deserves.

To Chk out up-dates on this cam­paign go to www.savetara.com or www.tarapixie.net
The pro­test­ers at Tara have asked me to call out for climbers and tun­nel­ers which are urgent­ly need­ed to share skills etc…

If you can’t get over to Ire­land to pro­tect Tara then you can tar­get the SIAC con­struc­tion companies,UK part­ners based in Glouces­ter­shire and Sus­sex.

Lanc­ing Busi­ness Park
Lanc­ing
West Sus­sex
BN15 8TY
Tel: 00 44 (0) 1903 755991
Fax: 00 44 (0)1903 755384
E‑mail: r.thomson@grahamwoodstructural.co.uk
Web­site : www.grahamwoodstructural.co.uk

To see films www.schnews.co.uk/schmovies
click on: “Tara tara tara” and “skul­dug­gery”