Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

13.03.2008
The M3 Motorway is cutting through one of the most beautiful ancient places in Europe.
Help is needed to support the protesters in County Meath, Ireland who are currently sitting in tunnels, after an illegal dawn raid on the direct action camp this morning!!
UK activists going to Tara this Saturday, for more info contact schnews@brighton.co.uk,
Week of solidarity action starts Paddys Day 17th March, read more….

The intense battle between protesters and the M3 Motorway, carving through the archaeological landscape, surrounding the ancient hill of Tara in County Meath in Ireland continues…….
This morning at 6.30am there was a dawn raid on the direct action camp on top of the Rath Lugh National Monument, only four hours before an injunction was due to be placed at 10.30am.
During the raid clueless construction workers were acting like the police, throwing their weight around, whilst dismantling the camp.
Protesters inside the tunnel network are vulnerable and need legal observers to protect them, the bulldozers are continuing to work on top of them, knowing full well that the ground is mainly sand and silt.
“The eviction is blatantly not being done with any care or proper training to remove the tunnel inhabitants” All tunnel veterans from the 90’s please get over to Tara to help with skills and advice ASAP!
This part of the M3 route is where Halliburton (owned by Dick Cheyney) are planning to build the tolls for the motorway, the construction workers are using C.P.O’s, compulsory purchase order’s to access the area, where they’ve started to cut into the esker / foundation.
This will result in lowering the water table, preventing water reaching the roots of the forest situated on top of the monument, gradually destroying hundreds of ancient oak’s and beech trees.
The National Roads Authority and the Irish Gov’t are choosing to ignore the fact that Rath Lugh is protected under the National Monuments act 2004 and are continuing to break EU Laws left, right and centre.

Further along the route tarmac is being laid at Soldiers Hill for the massive three acre interchange, as the concrete flyovers are going up.
Developers have plans for the surrounding area which will include shopping centres, hotel complexes and the usual Star Bucks and Mc Shite everywhere!!

People are desperately needed to go to Tara now, to build a new direct action camp, activists are meeting at Holyhead ferry port between 12noon -1pm Saturday 15th March, we have some money to contribute towards tickets, if folk want to come, get in touch with schNEWS.
If you can’t come to Ireland but want to take action here in the UK see below SIAC companies:

SIAC are an Irish company (South Ireland Asphalt Company) who have a 5% stake in the construction of the Irish M3 on it’s contested route in co Meath Ireland, and are also involved in the construction of an onshore gas refinery terminal at Rossport co Mayo.
along with their croneys FERROVIAL (Owners of Climate criminal company BAA and. 7 U. K airports) They are instrumental in the desecration and destruction of the sacred Tara valley in Ireland, Activists have called for solidarity against SIAC, and there will be ongoing actions against them and ferrovial internationally, with the formulation of international affinity groups.
Activists say there will be Actions against SIAC on and around March 17th 08, with dates for an international day of action against FERROVIAL to be announced shortly, SIAC have operations throughout the UK and Ireland in many fields ranging from construction to pharmaceutical research so there are plenty of opportunity to make you objections to them felt, so please publicise and organize in your local community, (see link’s bellow) TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERANCE!

Howell James, Managing Director, SIAC Construction (UK) Ltd
Bond’s Mill
The Counting House
Stonehouse
Gloucestershire
GL10 3RF
Tel: 00 44 145 382 8888
Fax: 00 44 145 382 4188
Sales enquiries E-mail: bob.abraham@siac.co.uk

Structural Steel
Richard Cooper, Managing Director, SIAC Tetbury Steel Ltd
London Road
Tetbury
Gloucestershire
GL8 8HH
Tel: 00 44 1666 502792
Fax: 00 44 1666 504246
E-mail: richard.cooper@siac.co.uk

Russell Thomson, Managing Director, Graham Wood Structural Limited
Chartwell Road
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

FOR UP-DATES AND INFO HOW TO GET TO TARA CHK OUT :

www.tarapixie.net
www.savetara.com
www.tarataratara.net

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Approx 80 personnel including several Gardai not displaying their numbers have descended on Rath Lugh.

There are 3 vehicles on the esker and a tractor half way up. This is seriously jeopardising the life of the girl pictured above who is locked into the tunnel by the neck. The Gardai are aware of this and are paying no heed!!!!

There is also a tractor heavy laden with steel works approaching from the Baronstown side and 22 jeeps have been counted.

The situatuion is extremely delicate and extremely tense.

Please go there if you can. Bring video equipment and phone credit. Go Now!!!

Please spread the word, contact all media, ring the Dept of the Environment, Tansport , Museum all…..

No coincidence that this is happening before a Court Order was made to stop them.

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3pm
A protester has been arrested – she has been released. She is not the same woman as that in the tunnel.
Straight from the protest site: things have calmed down. The Fire Brigade are well gone, will not make any attempt to remove the girl from the tunnel.
A tent will be erected at the entrance so that one other protester can communicate with her.
No effort was or will be made to remove her.
There are still 5 other people locked on with cement.
There is a small digger and steam roller as well as 18 jeeps at the site.
Nothing is driving on the esker.
They are tripping over media and cameras!
There are flood lights being brought in.
Court case being heard again at 2pm.

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4pm
Two more protesters arrested, dragged down the esker. A dump truck, a bulldozer in the area. Search and Rescue have arrived, – Civil Defence.
They need the garda ombudsman there –
They are hammering into the esker to erect the fence …………………..

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4:30
The construction workers with the aid of the Gardai have fenced off the sensitive area surrounding the tunnel entrance, separating it from the rest of the camp and the protesters. They are in the process of driving posts into the ground, endangering the stability of the area. The protesters onsite have backed away as the presence of Gardai, security, workers and activity around the area is also posing a threat and they do not wish to add further to the human element of possible damage due to an excess of bodies on the mound. Contact with the protester underground is being maintained by one other supporter inside the fence. An agreement has been reached which keeps the Machines at a safe distance.

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The injunction was refused by the court. Watch a video of today here

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Breaking news at www.indymedia.ie

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Background & new camp wish-list:

Here’s some background history and up-dates on what’s happening at Tara, Ireland.

Whatever you dream you can do begin it.
Boldness has genius,power & magic in it.
Begin it now.
Goethe

The idea that the land can be owned by a few at the expense of the many, is comparatively new in Ireland, when compared to the lovingly sculpted perfectly astronomically aligned hills of theTara/Skryne valley.
These are monuments from a time when the land was loved and honoured by the tribes that lived upon it, these days however a few morally bankrupt individuals feel it more advantageous to impose a tarmac coated nightmare on the once sacrosanct fields and hills of Tara/ Skryne.

A handful of Fianna Fail (the Irish ruling party) supporters and local property developers have brought land along an area that has SINCE become the route of the planned four lane M3 motorway, which would dissect 44 ancient sites, comprising a complex of pre-historic monuments, hillforts, and henges which make up one of the richest
archaeological sites anywhere in the world.

The highly respected world monuments fund have placed the entire valley on its list of one hundred most endangered world heritage sites, all this is bad for business you might think?

Especially if you’re one of the corrupt politicians or builders who want to destroy this valley with their developments so these people have become stubborn in there refusal to listen to a few academics, much less 70% of the Irish people who wished to see the road re-routed, the millions of euros the developers are going to make on the back of their dodgy dealing must have blocked their ears to the calm voice of reason. And so the diggers moved in attempting to build a massive 52 acre interchange at the foot of Tara hill itself.

On the 16th October 07 the last of the sites that exist on the proposed route of the M3 was reported to campaigners by a worried anonymous local, so concerned citizens on the ground went to see if there was any substance to reports that poorly trained polish archaeologists had been working in secret over previous weeks to excavate something at a site near soldiers hill (itself a site of major historical importance) relating to a decisive battle from the Irish 1798 up-rising which was recently bulldozed.

It would be nigh on impossible to express the history and significance of every site mentioned as the area Surrounding Tara/Skryne is so steeped in History so rich in archaeology that it would take page upon page to give an outline of each one and their relationship to one another.

There are ten sites of importance at the proposed interchange alone, only one other interchange of this size and type exists in Europe (it’s in Lithuania) the sheer size of it has prompted great fear amongst locals that more and more motorways are planned to criss-cross the area around Tara. (Tara hill it’s self is a site equivalent to Stonehenge in UK as a focus for the neo-pagan community).

Of course there’s been an outcry naturally there would be, after all through successive generations of Irish history Tara hill has stood as one of the most emblematic geographic symbols of the struggle that everyday people have had to overcome in order to secure a life not dominated by the greed of the few oppressing the happiness of the many.

Time and time again through the pages of Irelands history Tara and her environs emerge as the stage for an epic play that has mirrored the struggle of all the peoples of the Earth to live a life of worth and meaning.

In ancient times the high king or Ard Ri’ was chosen from amongst the Irish tribes, the Ard Ri’ lived at Tara and although their immediate lands were comparatively small it fell to the Ard Ri to have the final say in matters of judgement between the various tribal representatives of ancient Ireland.

Some may disagree with the notion of Kings and rulers imposing their will on the land and people from some distant hill,but notions of Kingship landownership and chieftainship where in entirely different under brehon law, than those that we in the UK have inherited as a result of nearly a thousand years of subjugation by a small elite of Norman robber Barons and their decendents.

St Patrick first preached his Gospel at Tara to the then Ard Ri’ (leoghiaire son of Na’ial) in mid 400 AD and Brian Mac Kennady (Brian Buru) was the last Ard Ri’ at Tara until 1041

In 1798 three hundred poorly armed “united Irish men” were massacred there, at site now called soldiers hill (the proposed location of the Blundellstown interchange) It’s also where O’connell addressed a crowd believed to be up to a million supporters from the top of tara hill when he led the movement for catholic emancipation in the 1830s from the laws penalising Catholics that had been passed by Cromwell in the 1650’s.

The Spainish company Ferrovial along with smaller operators, Wills Brothers and SIAC have taken on the Public Private Partnership alongside the national roads authority to build this road along it’s ridiculous crooked route through this complex of world heritage sites , and although they have been repeatedly ordered by the E U commission to stop all work on the site, all three companies and the Irish Gov’t have stubbornly refused to cease the work they have been compared by local MEP Kathy Sinnot to a small child who when asked to share a desert with a sibbling, stubbornly stuffs the whole thing in their mouths and petulantly replies ” I can’t it’s all gone” except this is nothing so trivial as that of course, because the land in question is one of the most archaeologically rich landscapes anywhere on earth , with an unbroken record of 6000 years of human habitation, the mind boggles at the potential significance of the archaeology in the area.

Incidently multinational giant Ferrovial helping to carry out this attack was founded (circa 1953) to porovide hardware for the Spainish rail system but was soon in financial difficulty and was eventually bailed out by Spain’s fascist dictator Franco, these links and others within Ferrovials board of directors have led many people to believe that its vindictive actions have been prompted by the right wing Spanish Catholic cult “Opus Dei” who incidently have their headquarters in Ireland, right in the centre of the ancient temple complex of the Tara/ Skryne valley.

Some things however, we can be absolutely certain of, Ferrovial were involved in a project (successfully resisted by locals) that had been intended to bulldoze a mountain, ancestoral graveyard, and sacred precinct,in Mexico, not to mention similar attrocities in Chile.
They also own 7 U.K airports, and are involved with with the forthcoming planned expansion of Dublin airport, plus the on going attempt to expand Heathrow etc, having purchased the British aviation authority for £10.31billion sterling last year.

At present they are trying another route to get there grubby little tenticles in the till by obtaining a slice of London’s underground system.

Of course there was outcry in Ireland when the idea of putting a motorway through Tara was first vaunted, but as Aldous Huxley once said “in the future it will be possible for the powers that be to controll the masses by providing endless amounts of distraction and propaganda” the Irish spin machine has shown it’s self to be as manipulative as any other in the developed world.

First word went out that a motorway was proposed at Tara, then as you would expect there was an uproar, so the Irish national roads authority put masses of funding into an awareness campaign “explaining” that they were not after all proposing a road through Tara, in fact they had merely suggested putting a road “around” Tara, an obvious ploy one might think, but one the Irish people have been expected to swallow hook line and sinker.

As the people of Ireland breathed their initial collective sigh of relief it was expected by the NRA that the public would overlook all the things that were not mentioned, issues like the 52 acre interchange at the foot of tara hill, the bulldozing of 44 (yes 44) archaeological sites, the demolition of a wooden henge with cannine and human internments in its original context (believed to be unique) the human burials include a high status female internment (which with proper analysis may well have provided useful commentary on the possible bias of the early christian scribes toward male kingship etc) the partial demolition of a unique hillfort, the bulldozing of a graveyard full of 60 french “celtic” style internments, the list goes on and on and on graves and sites and temples all sacred to the living soul of the land and her people, torn out so a handful of greedy selfish philistines can make a quick buck.

Meanwhile with the ongoing and wholesale destruction underway the Irish powers that be repeat their mantra, it’s not going through Tara hill they say, the living are more important than the dead and the living need that motorway, and on and on they repeat their patronsing oversights as if the people are so stupid as to not know that there is a better route to the west of Tara hill, that route would follow the flat level gradient of a disused railway track, or that all the best development land of the linked towns lays to the west, or that the shortest and best crossing of the Boyne river is to the west, in fact the only logical reason why anyone would build a road on the present proposed route is because a few crony’s of the Irish ruling party have brought up masses of land in the Tara/skryne valley and they alone stand to profit from this route.

So the politicians and road builders keep their heads in the sand, vainly repeating their mantra against reality, my hands are tied, we need a road, it’s not going through Tara, etc etc.
The Rath Lugh direct action camp was evicted yesterday,and people are still locked on in the tunnels we need people to come and help build a new camp along the M3.
Every visitor makes a difference to the protest.

Activities so far have included limited use of tripods, most recently at an iron age fort complex discovered in october near soldiers hill where protesters locked on to to obstruct the shoddy practices of badly trained and unprofessional polish archaeologists drafted in, to rush the dig through in secret, also tree houses have been placed on route, but work has been mainly stopped sporadicly by concerned E.U citizens upholding the law by physically standing in front of bulldozers,.

“The tactics and actions vary as we continue to shut down all work on this road once and for all” said one protestor ” the one thing that will never change is that we will defy this road to the last sod, and continue to protest as long as those responsible try to destroy our sacred land”

But greater numbers are urgently needed, anyone who cares is urged to visit and lend physical, moral or other support, everyone has something they can offer, the main thing is just to go to Tara hill and meet other people who care, it’s not about “protesters” or “activists” doing their demo , it’s about YOU caring enough to do something before it’s too late, don’t leave it to someone else.

HOW TO GET THERE.
National express funfares from £15 one way from the U.K (inc ferry) or £52 for a months open return on the train from most U.K rail stations.
Once you get to Dublin city center, get a 109 bus from Busaurus (central bus station) going north to Navan, and ask to be let off at Tara. It’s a short well signposted walk from the bus stop to Tara hill and the vigil site, this should cost about 11 euros return.

WISH LIST FOR THE NEW CAMP BEING SET UP!!!
Tarps, carpets, digital cameras and memory cards, old C.B. Rigs aerials etc, Mobile phones and credit, Large tents and tarpaulins, rope, climbing equipment and harness, Locks, chains, waterproof warm dry and durable clothing, serviceable welly boots and wax jacket, and all other types and sizes of serviceable boots, clean and warm blankets and bedding, Lighting equipment, security lights, and 12volt spotlights, scaffolding bars and clamps, welding equipment, pic’s shovels, mic’s and recording equipment, pic’s shovel’s etc, etc, but especially we need individuals with their own innitiative, the protest belongs to no one,, it’s up to you, if not you then who? If not now then when?

There are big events planned for may 1st, june 21st, aug 1st, sept 21st, oct 31st dec 21st feb 1st and march 31st,
The resistance will be ongoing against ferrovial regardless, and against the road until it is re routed, and let’s face it there’s nothing like a surprise visit to cheer folks up, so come on down to Tara and celebrate our love of the land and the strength of our unity and defiance.

Donations toward direct action gratefully received at www.tarapixie.net (direct action website, excellent films and up to the minute info from the ground)

And legal costs direct action and campaigning at www.savetara.com
Ongoing campaigning and corruption info and refs can be found at www.tarawatch.org

WEEK OF ACTION AGAINST SIAC STARTS MON 17th MARCH 2008

CONTACT: HEADMEN AT SIAC

Country code (0035)
Mark Cleary 08681 90323
Liam Shorthall 0868274419
Wills Headman 0879101759

Ciaran Feieghery Chairman of SIAC
Hank Fugarty is the director of SIAC Operations

GRUPO FERROVIAL S.A.
Principe de Vergara 135
28002 Madrid Spain
Tel no.+34-91 586- 2500
Fax no. +34-91-586-2677