Thursday 24th jan 08 Breakfast on the henge at Tara

We had decid­ed to have our break­fast on the henge this morn­ing. As I drove towards the N3 a low loader car­ry­ing a dig­ger was dri­ving towards Lis­mullen. Approx 10 pro­tes­tors arrived in Lis­mullen, some from the road and some from Rath Lugh. Secu­ri­ty were present dur­ing the entire time we were there. 2 pro­tes­tors were assault­ed with­in a few min­utes of arriv­ing. I tried to block the fuel com­ing out of the Lis­mullen carpark but Mark Cleary kept push­ing me out of the way and the fuel trac­tor got away. Steve from Kil­dare, one of the secu­ri­ty men assault­ed anoth­er pro­tes­tor, he was pulled from the fence and thrown onto the ground head first, and hurt his neck.

The Gar­dai arrived and asked us to leave. We explained we have every right to protest peace­ful­ly on a pub­lic road. The Gar­da seemed sur­prised that we chal­lenged him and backed down quick­ly after try­ing to intim­i­date us. The pro­tes­tors com­ing from Rath Lugh man­aged to get on site and try to stop the dig­ger. The Gar­dai entered the site and took names and address­es. The dig­ger was being used for soil sam­pling. We held ban­ners and one pro­tes­tor played “The Fog­gy Dew” as the work was going on. Some pro­tes­tors man­aged to get on site when the Gar­dai left to take footage of the work being car­ried out.

We decid­ed to scout out the entire val­ley. In Ard­sal­lagh we found a lot of con­struc­tion work being car­ried out beside the Riv­er Boyne. 4 or 5 pro­tes­tors stopped a dig­ger and doz­er by sit­ting on the machines. One dig­ger dri­ver refused to stop work­ing, break­ing all Health & Safe­ty reg­u­la­tions, not to men­tion endan­ger­ing the lives of the pro­tes­tors. The Gar­dai arrived again, tak­ing our names and address­es. When speak­ing to one Gar­da, he admit­ted that the pro­posed M3 is not suit­able and a rail­way would be a bet­ter solu­tion. We had to leave the site when instruct­ed, we would have been arrest­ed if we stayed.

The rest of the val­ley is as fol­lows:

In Cook­sland there is a bridge prac­ti­cal­ly fin­ishsed. The con­struc­tion work here is more advanced than any­where else.

Roestown: The dumpers are parked up because of the heavy rain and have not worked since before Christ­mas. They have to run their engines from 7am until 12 noon, they can go home then with­out hav­ing done any work. They are only being paid 6 hours a day, most of the dri­vers aren’t in a union so they can­not chal­lenge this.

Trevet: known as the Red Bog is com­plete­ly flood­ed. Only work­ers and their vehi­cles were present on site, along with the ESB lay­ing lines. Col­lier­stown: This morn­ing there was an unmarked Gar­da car with a uni­formed Gar­da. The Gar­da was talk­ing to one of the con­struc­tion work­ers on the pub­lic road. He had his black book and pen in hand, look­ing at the cement road sur­face which is rupped apart from the heavy machin­ery cross­ing. Meath Coun­ty Coun­cil spend their entire road main­te­nance bud­get for the coun­ty for the next 7 years on the down­pay­ment for the Pub­lic Pri­vate Part­ner­ship con­tract for the pro­posed M3. Unless locals start mak­ing com­plaints about the state of the exist­ing roads and their dete­ri­o­ra­tion because of the extra heavy machin­ery, not one pot hole is going to be filled in. 4 work­ers were on site on the fly­orv­er bridge being built which is advanc­ing quick­ly.

Baron­stown: 2 men on site work­ing on the fly­over bridge which is more advanced than the bridge at Col­lier­sown.

Sol­dier Hill/Blundelstown: 4 dump trucks were parked up at the entrance, not work­ing because of the site flood­ed from recent heavy rain. Approx 7 dig­gers and a few doz­ers were work­ing both along the N3 and towards Dowd­stown. 3 huge blue pil­lars, pos­si­bly bridge sup­ports have been erect­ed.

Dowd­stown: This site has been qui­et for the last few months, but the work from Sol­dier Hill is com­ing clos­er and clos­er to Dowd­stown.

Ard­sal­lagh: see above.

Ken­nas­town com­pound: The bridge here is quite advanced but there was not much machin­ery work­ing here today.

Relat­ed Link: http://www.tarapixie.net

———-

The Tide Turns at Tara

Stronger than bedrock, spring in the air and momen­tum on the rise

Feel free to copy and cir­cu­late this appeal, stick it to notice boards, win­dows, news­pa­pers, post it on Inter­net sites ask a per­son­al friend or fam­i­ly mem­ber to give you the time it takes to read it.

I’m sit­ting in the round­house at the camp in Rath Lugh. There are sausages in the pan and tea, sug­ary tea, in nev­er emp­ty­ing pots and ket­tles. I’ve been dry­ing my socks and boots, the legs of my trousers and my damp feet by a scorch­ing stove. This morn­ing a branch broke by a stream to leave me up to my knees in yes­ter­day’s rain. The sun is shin­ing again but the breeze is strong and cold out­side. Hearts are warm in the pip­ing shel­ter – stronger than bedrock.

In amongst the dozen or more friends present as I write are sto­ries and songs, old and new. Peo­ple are pass­ing each oth­er’s knowl­edge around and ask­ing ques­tions. ‘What was found over there?’, ‘When does it come from?’, ‘Do you take milk?’. We had set out ear­ly this morn­ing to vis­it the site of an ancient Wood­en Henge uncov­ered dur­ing the road works. Our plan was to light a small fire and cook break­fast near­by, and should any­one in uni­form wish to approach us demand­ing answers then we planned to be equipped with full bel­lies and gen­uine smiles to greet them. How­ev­er, on our arrival, work, which had ceased for a peri­od on this site, recent­ly, had resumed with guards and kilo­me­tres, hun­dreds of kilo­me­tres, of expen­sive fenc­ing to for­bid our entry. I crouched under a Hawthorn tree and watched for an hour as friends of mine crossed the line to seek answers of their own. We returned to the camp to regroup and eat hav­ing dis­persed along dif­fer­ent routes of appeal in light of such vig­or­ous dis­re­gard for com­mon sense.

Right now an old man is telling a sto­ry about chests of gold and St. Patrick, of drink­ing con­coc­tions and mag­ic tricks. In his own words, ‘It’s a long auld sto­ry.’ He’s claimed every­one’s atten­tion in an instant and the room has fall­en silent. Spir­its are high. An arti­cle is being passed around from a recent local news­pa­per. Some­one had writ­ten in claim­ing the cam­paign to Save Tara and the Gabhra Val­ley from the M3 motor­way was all but fin­ished. From where I sit it’s all just begin­ning. Though num­bers are few at present (some­where, as an opti­mistic esti­mate, between 20 and 30 peo­ple), that num­ber is strength­en­ing, steadi­ly increas­ing, and a pos­i­tive atti­tude reigns. At the Vig­il camp I hear talk of pro­posed plans for when the TV cam­eras of TG4 arrive next week. One sug­ges­tion made pre­vi­ous­ly, and a pleas­ant coin­ci­dence, is that the camp at Rath Lugh be des­ig­nat­ed Gaeltacht sta­tus and already peo­ple of dif­fer­ent nation­al­i­ties have begun to learn and speak basic Irish. There is a mag­nif­i­cent atmos­phere all around, but the sever­i­ty of what is hap­pen­ing with every pass­ing hour is lost on no one.

I have not yet been asked to cast any vote relat­ing to plans for the M3 motor­way through Tara. I har­bour a belief that the vast major­i­ty of the peo­ple of Ire­land have been dis­il­lu­sioned over the past few years by non­sense, igno­rance and con­fu­sion sur­round­ing such devel­op­ments in the name of progress — the cor­rup­tion cloud­ing the Car­rick­mines works, the cost of such spe­cial beau­ty in the Glen of the Downs — but had the peo­ple on the elec­torate been con­sid­ered I sin­cere­ly believe this time it would not be hap­pen­ing. Right now it is the very peo­ple who feel most pow­er­less that we need so des­per­ate­ly. True progress is being made here at Tara, and you can feel it in our camps, there is a wind of change in the air, but that wind will sweep away our rights and take our abil­i­ty for self-deter­mi­na­tion if we do noth­ing con­tin­u­ous­ly. As strong as we are — and I am a very recent par­tic­i­pant, and can only admire and respect the con­vic­tion of those that have been on site here for years — it is nei­ther I nor the peo­ple around me who will ulti­mate­ly halt this abom­i­na­tion of assump­tion on the part of our lead­ers. It is the peo­ple who would nor­mal­ly do noth­ing that we need most now. Maybe call this strike-three and mark where the aim is, attack­ing the very heart of our her­itage. The M3 motor­way will be no lit­tle Bóthairín. A motor­way is no mark of respect; it is a func­tion­al expanse of bar­ren waste­land serv­ing soul-guz­zling machin­ery. And no one asked me.

That for me is the essence of the appeal I am mak­ing, and the core of my argu­ment. There is lit­tle or no forum pro­vid­ed to pub­licly debate a diver­si­ty of solu­tions on this issue, at least not in the every­day real world of the com­mon per­son, wide­spread opin­ion has not been sought. No one asked me, and no one asked you. I have spo­ken of it with oth­ers, long and short, as much as I can with out wear­ing out my own moral fibre or the issue at hand. Just about every­one, from all walks of life, who I com­mu­ni­cate with direct­ly on a dai­ly basis, and I’m not shy nor lim­it­ed in friends and acquain­tances (and nei­ther am I afraid of mak­ing new ones), almost every­body, is against this pro­posed motor­way. Pub­lic opin­ion is on our side. Though it is being built, and rapid­ly, it has not yet been realised, the M3 motor­way is NOT yet built. I don’t read papers for my sta­tis­tics, I base what I say on real life and real peo­ple, and I think we’re all on the same side here. For­get about the incom­pe­tence of politi­cians, this deci­sion can be reversed, but this time we need to do it our­selves. Our wise lead­ers have failed us absolute­ly. Our coun­try has bare­ly known a taste of free­dom yet already we are active­ly com­plic­it in the destruc­tion of the one cen­tral, world-renowned and undi­lut­ed sym­bol of our uni­ty and strength. Where are the Fian­na buried? This place is spe­cial; you can almost pick strands of music from the floor. Sto­ries, poems, music and song draw all who vis­it here into a desire to recon­nect with our his­to­ry and fad­ing cul­ture, the place is alive. Fam­i­lies are wel­come in our camps, old and young, peo­ple of all dif­fer­ent back­grounds. Some­times it’s a bit rough and ready, but we’re not claim­ing to be angel­ic, we mere­ly claim an open space. This is the womb of our cul­ture, a mag­i­cal place with so much to speak of I have to refrain from nev­er fin­ish­ing. Come and see.

Should you come to vis­it do not feel oblig­ed to suf­fer a sen­tence. You are wel­come for a cup of tea, a ses­sion, maybe, until night, or longer if you wish. But please come NOW, before it goes fur­ther. If you can­not or do not wish to come then please encour­age oth­ers around you. Talk about it, find out about it, use the Inter­net, or the Library, and use your ini­tia­tive. Send your opin­ion out there. Write to a spe­cif­ic per­son, be your let­ter long or short, full of facts or feel­ings, write in ink or text, newsprint or radio waves. Do Some­thing. Laugh at me in my roman­tic naivety, but do some­thing. Send us your prayers. Bypass and ignore the politi­cians they have failed us absolute­ly, we can only now make our appeals direct­ly to the peo­ple on the ground. And keep pos­i­tive about it, you don’t need to let it all get you down. Any per­son is capa­ble of refus­ing to accept a detri­men­tal deci­sion with a big beam­ing smile, and with­out rais­ing anger, voice or blood pres­sure. Find out and make your mind up one way or the oth­er, but please do some­thing. If you can come in per­son then please do not delay, all help is warm­ly received and great­ly appre­ci­at­ed, there is lit­tle anger here despite it all.

The work being done is done in haste and is high­ly destruc­tive, lack­ing in all care or respect. This is not the work­ers fault, they are being manip­u­lat­ed and exploit­ed by high­ly ques­tion­able polit­i­cal motives fur­ther up a chain of com­mand, and I for one cer­tain­ly do under­stand the stress­ful con­di­tions under which they work. The pow­ers that be would have this des­e­cra­tion realised as soon as pos­si­ble, to leave you and I with no choice but to roll over and take it. Not only is our her­itage being raped, we are being robbed of our demo­c­ra­t­ic right to choose. One short, Euro­pean kilo­me­tre from the sum­mit of Tara work is under­way to devel­op a 52-acre, flood­lit inter­sec­tion. Why not an inter­pre­tive cen­tre instead? Work being done need not be wast­ed but it must be stopped. This place has been cel­e­brat­ed for thou­sands upon thou­sands of years and now we have no time to think. There ARE alter­na­tives. Make one tele­phone call. Call your next-door neigh­bour, call your mum, call me. Come vis­it me. I’ll sing a song for you, with you, I’ll even shut up if you come and ask me to. You need not do much but please do some­thing. High­ly sig­nif­i­cant and unique finds that could rock the world’s assump­tions about ancient human cul­ture and pre­his­toric Gaels are being denied pub­lic atten­tion to speed the removal of your opin­ion. No one asked me, but I have a right, some­times a duty, to answer any­way. There are not many sites like this on plan­et Earth and the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty stands opposed to its destruc­tion.

As I tap that last full stop, laugh­ter erupts all around me. Some­one told a joke. There is a magi­cian here with a mes­mer­iz­ing sleight of hand. I’m now hear­ing talk of an exten­sion to some exist­ing preser­va­tion orders on some of the sites. Things have changed since I vis­it­ed last. I was here for less than a week last time, just before Christ­mas, and mere­ly 2 days of my cur­rent vis­it have passed — yet progress has been made. We are win­ning. The work­ers don’t need this has­sle, and I’m pos­i­tive the vast major­i­ty would rather do some­thing else, they are just doing their jobs, but com­mon sense is win­ning, and you can see it in their eyes. It is this very moment, as you read, that is crit­i­cal, and we need help. We need some­thing, any­thing, from those who would nor­mal­ly do noth­ing. I have so much more to tell since my recent arrival, so much I can­not begin to explain for fear of not want­i­ng to fin­ish, and I’ve oth­er things to do, and I’m hun­gry, and din­ner’s cooked, besides I’ve already tak­en too much of your time. Come see for your­self if you can.

Spir­its are high, but we need all the help we can get, please …

Our strength is our diver­si­ty.

Thanks for your time.