Tara frontline Action ‑avin it

On Mon­day Sep­tem­ber 24th, thir­ty brave cul­tur­al con­ser­va­tion­ists donned face paints and head­ed off on a route walk from the Rath Lugh direct action camp. Film direc­tor and actor Stu­art Townsend, fresh from the high­ly suc­cess­ful aer­i­al pho­to­graph on the hill attend­ed by an esti­mat­ed 3,000 peo­ple on Sun­day, arrived with four mas­sive bags of shop­ping for Tara’s sol­diers before every­one set off. Stuart’s con­tin­u­ing sup­port is mas­sive­ly appre­ci­at­ed!

On Mon­day Sep­tem­ber 24th, thir­ty brave cul­tur­al con­ser­va­tion­ists donned face paints and head­ed off on a route walk from the Rath Lugh direct action camp. Film direc­tor and actor Stu­art Townsend, fresh from the high­ly suc­cess­ful aer­i­al pho­to­graph on the hill attend­ed by an esti­mat­ed 3,000 peo­ple on Sun­day, arrived with four mas­sive bags of shop­ping for Tara’s sol­diers before every­one set off. Stuart’s con­tin­u­ing sup­port is mas­sive­ly appre­ci­at­ed!

Once on route activists erect­ed bar­ri­cades along the paths of the dig­gers and bull­doz­ers to slow destruc­tion work. Activists pro­ceed­ed to Baron­stown where sev­en to eight dig­gers were occu­pied, climbed and danced upon. The walk con­tin­ued as our mer­ry band arrived at Col­lier­stown, an ancient Fian­na grave­yard. The two dig­gers work­ing when we arrived were quick­ly halt­ed with peo­ple climb­ing into buck­ets of dig­gers, onto roofs and onto their tracks. Songs were sung and peo­ple danced. Work was halt­ed for half an hour before scouts indi­cat­ed that machin­ery was work­ing up ahead at Trevet. We head­ed there and on the way occu­pied anoth­er dig­ger. The dri­ver of this dig­ger refused to turn off his engine despite the fact that activists occu­pied his machine, a clear vio­la­tion of health and safe­ty laws and a sack­able offense.

Our next stop was Trevet, where one bull­doz­er was pre­vent­ed from work­ing by activists. It was then that the Gar­dai made their appear­ance. Tak­ing some of our group aside, names were tak­en and no fur­ther action occurred. As our walk was slight­ly behind sched­ule, when Gar­da offi­cers approached we decid­ed to pick up the pace, keep­ing twen­ty to forty feet between our­selves and the law. Offi­cers con­tin­ued to fol­low us for anoth­er 100 metres before head­ing back the way they came. Hav­ing stopped work for hours it was near din­ner time so we head­ed back to base camp. Through­out the day as we passed the sacred sites in the path of the pro­posed motor­way short talks were giv­en about the his­tor­i­cal and archae­o­log­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of each site. No one was arrest­ed and a great day was had by all. The cam­paign to pro­tect Tara from the mon­ey mad mile con­tin­ues pick­ing up pace after the phe­nom­e­nal suc­cess of the inter­na­tion­al Harpists for Tara event and John Quigley’s stun­ning aer­i­al pho­tog­ra­phy. Every Mon­day route walks will con­tin­ue.

Com­ple­tion of the M3 through the Tara Val­ley is years away and there is every­thing to play for! Be at the Tara Sol­i­dar­i­ty Vig­il camp on the hill by 9.30 am or at Rath Lugh by 10.00am. Please come, please sup­port and net­work!

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