Recently at Samhain a social anthropologist visited Tara and we met. Together with a few other people we had a walk on Rath Lugh together in a last hours of the old year. She is doing a project in New Zeeland on how people react when heritage sites which mean something to them are destroyed.
She seemed a very nice, educated and sincere woman and we had a lovely evening.
It is hard though not to notice that many such people are now visiting Tara regularly, there are ever more symposiums being held and meetings about these sort of things are gaining in popularity. This subject seems to have big money flowing into it and into some of the academics who will work on it. Yet despite this the wreckage and destruction of such sites and their environment goes on and in Ireland it just gets worse. What is planned for Meath and for Bremore in particular dwarfs what happened at Tara.
As a result I cannot help but feel that someone somewhere is preparing for a much greater wake.
The Social Anthropologist I met at Tara asked me what I thought about all this and if I would write it all down and send it to her.
Here it is.
My first reply.
Kathryn,
I hope this finds you well.
Last week on Rath Lugh you asked me what I thought about the destruction of the Tara Complex and I told you what I thought. Before I told you though I warned you that I was a nationalist and so my answers would not be politically correct as all answers are expected to be today.
Today I see in your email that you have asked me again. So ok here goes.
I believe that the destruction of the Tara Complex was just a forerunner for the destruction of our race, culture and heritage. It is not an accident but one well thought out and long planned. It has been planned mostly by the EU.
As you know the EU has its origins in the ECSC Treaty singed in Paris in 1951. This was the European Coal and Steel Treaty. It brought France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries together in a Community with the aim of organizing free movement of coal and steel and free access to sources of production. In addition to this, a common High Authority supervised the market, respect for competition rules and price transparency. This treaty is the origin of the institution we know as the EU today.
Less well known is that this original treaty was promoted, planned and financed by America and that the central figure in this was Zbigniew Brzezinski. Much has been written about him and I will not go into it here. Brzezinski argued that a coordinated policy among developed nations was necessary in order to counter global instability erupting from increasing economic inequality. This sounds great. To do this Brzezinski co-founded the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller. You can read up on this too. There is much, much more online about this strange group than I care to mention. However what should be know is that hidden deep in the writings of this movement is a hatred for nation states and an acknowledgement of the benefits of Communist ideology. They rant against Communism but use its methods.
This Trilateral believed in a union of republics, three at the start, fused into one and forced if necessary and then ruled by a small unelected elite. Also hidden deep in the ideology of the Trilateral was forced birth control and population reduction (a good thing) and the ordering of all peoples into two groups; those who are of benefit and those who are not (a very bad thing for me at least). An aged Zbigniew Brzezinski is now a top adviser to Barack Obama.
The men responsible for the success of the ECSC Treaty and the acknowledged fathers of the EU, Schumann and Monet were hand picked by Mr. Brzezinski.
Mr. Monet proved his love of Communism, freedom and civil rights by choosing to be married not in Paris or Europe but in Moscow in its darkest hour. All this is well hidden and few know or can explain it when they do find out.
It would seem to me that the EU has never let go of this founding ideology; the creation of a super state by force if necessary, leading to the destruction of smaller states and all ruled and controlled by an unelected elite. It has also deemed nationalists to be no good to the new order. It might also be assumed that the new EU does not like free schools, good wages or free health care etc.
The Lisbon Treaty seem to prove that. You have indeed a choice but only if you agree with the choice accepted by this elite.
The EU now openly admits that it is their aim to remove nationalism from Europe. The EU does not like racial or cultural belonging at all and they do not like old spiritual places like Tara either, areas embedded in such beliefs. Instead they see such places as a hindrance to their aims. When Europe was called upon to stop the M3 they waited two years and then said no. There is no example of them saying or doing otherwise in other such places that I know. Mostly all Irish politicians took the same approach.
Soon all this will be irrelevant. It will be for academics like you to ponder over because as a result of these malignant politics our population is changing too.
In 2005 Prof. Prondzynski of Dublin City University warned that if the present trend of immigration into Ireland continued then Irish people will become a minority in Ireland by the year 2050.
In 2007 the Central Systistics Office released a report that claimed Ireland's population was set to climb to its highest level in 200 years and could reach seven million by 2041. It also stated however that if immigration was ended and native fertility levels remained the same the study suggests that the Irish population would only grow from its present 4.25 million to 4.9 million by 2041.
(CSO study 2008. 'Population and Labor Force Projections 2011-2041').
The latest CSO Report Children and Young People in Ireland 2008, released in June 2009, showed that there was a surge in births which placed Ireland at top of EU list.
It showed that Ireland now has the highest proportion of children aged nine years or younger and the second highest proportion of children aged 10-14 years (6 per cent). Due to immigration the ethnic profile of the population has also changed and although young people with Irish ethnicity accounted for 85 per cent of the population aged 0-4 years and 92 per cent of the 15-19 years age group in 2006, children with black ethnicity accounted for 3 per cent of young people aged 0-4 years. The other ethnic populations; Asian, Arabic, Roma etc have also shown a similar surge and together they now amount to 15% of the 0- 4 years age group in the Irish Population. This can only grow. It is among these groups that the recent surge in birth rates has taken place.
Most Irish people no longer care about this or their future so how can they be expected to care about their past. They don’t. In 2006 an African family objected to a School Halloween party in Dundalk as they claimed in was connected to witchcraft. The party was cancelled.
In 2007 a crib was removed from Crumlin Hospital at the request of some Islamic doctors and just this morning I heard on the radio that the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the display of school crucifixes is contrary to educational pluralism in Italy. They should be removed. This ruling can now be used here too. This is acknowledged in today’s Irish Times.
Most modern Irish people will clap with glee at hearing this but when in some future case people are ask to remove standing stones, Ogham Stones or Shelia na Gigs from the land as they represent paganism, something alien to the growing number of religious intoxicated foreigners here, to whom or to what do we appeal to? How do we say no?
I played a small part in trying to stop the road, I did it for many reasons mostly environmental and heritage but for some obtuse spiritual ones too. I do not know if my part in the campaign helped or hindered it. It was though the defining event in my life, the point where I learned that all and everything will be destroyed to create a new order.
I will not be part of that order and that won’t change.
I am an EcoNationalist, a new take on an old idea. This ideology holds that love of our country means love of our land; its woods, water, and wildlife and that these concepts must sit along side the older concepts of love of our race, culture and heritage.
EcoNationalism believes that people have a moral duty to preserve and protect these for the future generations of us, who like us will need them. EcoNationalism sees a low population model of our land to be vital to our land if anything of value is to remain in it and continue to exist. This holds true for the rat, bat, cat and bogman.
I believe all this but I am in a very, very small minority and I know that.
Modern Irish people have walked away from almost everything, all movements, plans and laws receive just one answer “what’s in it for me”
Now perhaps two out of ten people think deeply about anything. The fact that it was a rising population in Ireland and in Meath in particular which was used to justify, explain and excuse the M3 being built went past us, it had little effect. Few protesters were interested in even talking about this much less demanding an end to immigration. This is the last great taboo but one which is growing. Again we are free but only free if they nod in approval.
From the little I know of you I believe that you are a trained and highly educated woman but almost certainly liberal and left. Most academics are. I accept that.
I am trained in plant science and I see succession as being the natural outcome of failure to fight or resist. This is nature’s way of organising things. Countless species are succeeded by more virile and aggressive species and those which lose are then marginalised, endangered or pushed to extinction. This happens all the time. It will happen us too, it just takes time.
The people who will succeed us, (it is happening and it is advanced) will care little for places like Tara, their academics will not do so either. I cannot help but recognising that academia hitches itself to the Zeitgeist and rides along. Not be trendy is its greatest fear and deepest shame.
The Metrical Dindschenchas tells us that at the start Tara was a Hazel Wood. I believe that in about thirty years, at the end, it will be a built up hill overlooking an overpopulated litter strewn suburbia, its brown populace fighting a desperate but vain battle with a changing and hostile climate.
Even today with the benefit of education and knowledge it’s what the majority of Ireland people seem to want.
John.
2nd Reply.
It’s not just blaming immigrants for what happens, it’s that immigrants create a demand for infrastructure (when enough of them come); roads, housing and then more roads and more housing and this then destroys our land. That’s the model we have just seen. It’s also the model our government are trying to restart.
It’s us yes who make the laws, elect the politicians and it is some of our own who develop and benefit (a small elite) but it’s the EU that makes it impossible to stop immigration and they also finance almost all big infrastructure projects etc. Up to 80%. Do you know that? The M3 and oil and gas fields in Mayo etc were all developed by foreign multi national corporations. If a low population model was put in place in Ireland we could neither finance, justify nor sustain such hubris but a rising population can. Rising populations are behind almost all environmental and heritage destruction, racism and most wars. Many, many brilliant minds from James Lovelock to Richard Attenborough now say this, denying it is denying the truth.
If New Zeeland starts to attract the amount of immigrants that Europe is now attracting, (we alone had over half a million in just ten years), then it will be interesting to see how long heritage protection there remains sacrosanct?
A much older area than Tara, Bremore is now under attack and soon to go under to development. The arguments on why remain the same.
The Liberal Left fights tooth and nail for multiculturalism and the rights of foreigners but the rights of indigenous Irish gets bulldozed away. They won’t even acknowledge that Bremore or Tara for that matter are areas that hold special racial and cultural significance. Such sites are for people of colour alone. Ours are to be protected as tourist sites if at all. It’s as though their deeper meaning should be bulldozed but bulldoze that and you are just left with tourist sites!
I believe that we all have a right to an intact and healthy environment, clean water and space. I also believe that animals have a right to a life free from hunting, torment and harm but that is only possible with social and population restraint.
I asked many of these politicians personally to get involved at Tara; just two did.
Out of a population of 4.5 million, three hundred at most turned out for any of the protest marches. Many, many politicians do run on single issues like childcare, foxhunting etc but no single politician ran for office on a Tara ticket in the elections of 2007; not one.
The international outcry if it happened was small and useless, in five years I read at most fifty letters in all the news media I accessed. I was keeping an eye on that, I wrote about five of them.
Perhaps the shock, international outcry and uprising happened in Cyberspace but here on earth it most certainly did not.
Maybe international academia did bring some pressure; mostly I feel they meet among themselves and then issued papers which have little or no effect and always after the destruction has happened.
The Irish Government with a nod from the EU signed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples in 2007.
UN Deceleration on the Rights of Indigenous People Article 11.
Indigenous peoples have the right to practice and revitalize their cultural
traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the
past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and
historical sites, artifacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and
performing arts and literature.
States shall provide redress through effective mechanisms, which may
include restitution, developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples, with respect
to their cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property taken without their
free, prior and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs.
Yet in 2007 at the time this document was signed many such places at Tara were bulldozed because Europe and modern Irish politicians refused to recognise that Irish people are an indigenous people.
Recently The Heritage Council of Ireland issued a report entitled “Archaeological Features at Risk Project” and they found that the destruction of known archaeological monuments in the Republic of Ireland has accelerated dramatically. A 6.5 per cent rate of destruction a decade. In one year alone 1.7 per cent of the monuments listed were destroyed. They are the remnants of our past, reminders that we were not always a litter strewn slum. They are also European cultural monuments, protected and made secure for the future, there are laws, any amount of them but still they were bulldozed at will. Why, because nobody really cares anymore? Our protectors sit in warmed up offices and seldom if ever even walk the fields and check on what they should protect. Instead they issued paper after paper and hold all sorts of meetings, attended by a well dressed well paid international rabble. All my mails to them are either ignored or I get an automated reply. It is the same with many people that I know,
I deeply believe that the future is a planned world Government, where racial and national belonging will be banned. It will be a human mass ordained to use and consume, fed poisoned entertainment and ruled by small elite. It will involve unimaginable social engineering and the tampering with all of nature’s codes. It will not involve violence or war but it will evolve slowly like they way Europe now evolves. Decisions will be made in secret by an elite and the rest of humanity will be forced to accept under the guise of progress. There will be a merging of all cultural and social ideologies with America, economic principles will dominate, China with its population pressures will accept and finally join in and move their peoples in to, only Islam will resist. They will then be accommodated by free movement of their huge surplus peoples and they too will come in.
If it goes well it will still be a hostile place for White Europeans, not just those who will not conform. White people made up to 30% of the world’s population in 1950; today they make up about 10%. The combined white population of America, Russia, Europe and the Australia’s is about 700,000,000 and dropping. The world’s population is now about 6.6 Billion, (UN 2007).
Mixing is not always a good thing, never if it is forced.
In horticulture if you hybridise something it must be of similar stock. If you graft something onto something else it must be similar too if it is to work. Even then there is often what’s known as “returning to type”. Trees sometimes split open to shake of what was grafted onto them and their seeds often become sterile. They will never breed true. They will not conform. I have seen a tree burst due to this pressure. We can expect that in future societies too, lots of it, but it will be called racism and dammed. Despite that it will happen and happen again and cause strange erupting tensions because nature had a different plan and a million years of waffle will not change that.
The new order, man made and synthetic, might indeed try and save the planet but only the aspects of it, it can use. At what cost?
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SaveBremore/messages/
http://bremore.blogspot.com/
http://againsttheport.webs.com
Friday, November 6, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Submission on the Tara/Skryne Landscape Project.
*Put the long term survival of Tara above the wishes of people to visit it and limit the numbers who can access the Hill.
*Declare the postal area now called Tara an area of special conservation.
*Return the bodies and artifacts taken from the valley.
The bodies taken from the Tara area since 1950, due to archeological digs or road building amount to no more than 300 in number. All of these could be laid to rest in a simple deep grave, covered by a cairn of stones in what remains of the Lismullen woods. Here they would be close to a stream as the ancients wished, close to trees and in an ancient area of ancient spirituality. These woods could be then protected as a heritage and conservation area.
The jars, vases etc taken from digs on the Mound of the Hostages, the bird pendants taken from Barronstown, the bridle and horse bits found at the Gabhra battle field, the Urns etc uprooted at sites along the M3 take could all be held in glass vaults, set around the inside walls of the old church at Tara. They do not make up a lot of articles, perhaps 20 at most.
The Ogham Stone which now stand alone along the roadside fence between Barronstown and Collierstown, marking out the site of the Gabhra Battle should be declared a protected structure as should the field in which it stands.
“On the Ogham it is written where the warriors fell”, The book of Leinster.
*The decorated stone, taken from the souteriann at Lismullen Woods could be set into the wall on the outside of the church.
*What is left under the ground in the valley should be now left there.
*Finally insist that the Hill of Tara be recognized as an area of Irish indigenous spirituality.
A weeks work and less than ten thousand Euros could facilitate all this.
Nb. Carrying Capacity.
As an environmentalist I place the concept of a carrying capacity at the very centre of life. The carrying capacity of a given area concerns itself with how many people can exist in that area, in harmony with its environment and ecology before the balance is tipped and nature looses. I believe that this is the single most important question facing mankind at a local, national and global level so we must start with our earth.
The carrying capacity of the earth is about two billion people. This was the level which human populations never breached until the industrial revolution started in 1820. Then as we broke free of the constraints of nature our numbers started to rise. Today the population of the earth is circa 6.6 billion, this will rise to 9.5 billion in 2050 and from there who knows! (UN 2008). This may fall but it is unlikely to ever again fall below 2 billion, the accepted sustainable and natural population of human beings. However this should be the line on which all human plans are based and one which we should all work towards. Going even some way to meeting this level of human population would take pressure off the eco systems of the earth, the ones it and we need for long term survival. Less people might mean less wars, less misery and less disease. It would give other creatures a chance of a natural life in safety and it would leave the hope of giving everyone a house, a job and basic health care a possibility.
If we accept this then we must ask: what is the carrying capacity for our own land; Ireland.
The optimal population on which environmental sanity, social cohesion and economic sustainability could be assured, long term on the island of Ireland is about 5 million people. Again this is the upper level and one never breached before the industrial revolution and one which started to rise about the same time. A few years ago researchers in Trinity College, using methods developed by the great Greek Philosopher Plato came to a similar conclusion. However the last CSO Population study shows that the population of Southern Ireland alone is destined to reach 7. 5 million people by the year 2040, (CSO 2008), half of whom will be foreigners. This growth is in temporary decline but time will readjust it upwards. During the boom Fianna Fail had a plan, sometimes acknowledged often not, to have the population of Ireland reach ten million as soon as possible. This, “more is better ideal”, is the one also loved by Capitalism and its adherents as it provides the human fuel for consumption, development and expansion. It should come as no surprise that the M3 was always sold on the need for a road due to a rising population in Meath. The opposition politics of Ireland, “The Left” if we can call them an opposition, are even more vehemently opposed to population reduction as it hinders their multi cultural dogma, their base for ther future model of our society.
A limit to anything it seems is beyond their view.
A population of 10-12 million people on the Ireland of Ireland would be twice the optimal level, i.e., twice the carrying capacity of our land and if you were to ask any engineer or scientist what would the likely outcome for any system that is overloaded by a factor of two be, they would in all probability shake their heads and issue a warning.
Yet we feel it normal and even desirable to do the same to our land and earth. Why?
Now telescoping our argument back down to where we started we must ask ourselves; “what is the carrying capacity of Tara”. How many people could access Tara yearly without endangering its monuments and ambience, considering first that these are soil monuments and subject to wear and decay? If we could establish this carrying capacity, (we could) how then could we maintain it?
The answer would mean closing off the Hill of Tara to all but a few local and spiritual seeking people, who revere, respect and cherish it.
Tara is not and never was a tourist site; it was in the words of the great historian and writer R.S.McAllester “A Pagan Sanctuary of Ancient Ireland”. It lasted for so long simply because it was revered and left alone. In its heyday Tara was off limits to all but a chosen few. History tells us that. Later there were a few monster meeting held on its hill but mostly it was empty of humans and their ways and so it and its mounds have survived. If it was always thus, always a place out of bounds to the masses, a spiritual place, a sanctuary, then should it not remain so?
It is now though being advertised as a must see site on all tourist websites, in brochures and in hotel lobbies. This brings in more people and more tourists and this means more busses. In time new places will have to be found to park them. This will then drag in other infrastructure like toilets, a bigger café and in time a hotel will be mooted as “needed”. From there things will grow as it always does. A built up tourist site Tara will become.
There are many instances however where governments had to fence off and limit the number of people wanting to visit sacred and special places simply to protect and save them. Newgrange and Stonehenge are just two of many examples. Doing what’s right may not be popular but it is right. Fencing off Tara and limiting the number of people who can access it is neither wrong nor a slight to its history. It was always so. It is also the only way we can assure its survival.
If you doubt this then take Rath Lugh. Two years ago Rath Lugh was a mess. People were camped on its roof, it was littered, its trees were been cut down and local youths were using quad bikes to race across it. Today it is fenced off and it has reverted to what it always was; a quiet tree lined burial ground of Fienien chieftains and ancient druids. Thanks to the fence the quad bikes are gone, gone too are the sportsmen who felt it fun to shoot the unfortunate wildlife who try to live there, gone are the campers and so nature has again reclaimed it. In just a year there is much regrowth and natural renewal. However anyone with a deep love of the place and who really wants to visit it can easily slip the fence and spend a few magical carefree and quiet hours under its green roof.
A carrying capacity puts limits on what mankind can do. It is mankind who threatens the earth; it is us who threaten Tara. We can all act responsibly now and finally say no, Tara comes before us and what we want. Or we can take the infantile path and put our wants above our needs and the needs of the place we claim to cherish. The wreckage from following want above need is easy to see: just go to the valley and look at the M3.
Putting a carrying capacity on the entire Tara/Skryne valley would be easy too. Use the census figures available and do not allow the population grow beyond this point. No more new “outsider” housing, no more factories or developments, just insist instead that if our government allows our population to grow then they must house and employ then within the existing city and town boundaries. This would do more than anything else to change the mind set “of more is better”, it would stop us turning our land into a litter strewn suburbia, it would introduce planning and caution to immigration and it would start to heal the wounds now open at Tara. Wounds caused by us doing what they want.
*Declare the postal area now called Tara an area of special conservation.
*Return the bodies and artifacts taken from the valley.
The bodies taken from the Tara area since 1950, due to archeological digs or road building amount to no more than 300 in number. All of these could be laid to rest in a simple deep grave, covered by a cairn of stones in what remains of the Lismullen woods. Here they would be close to a stream as the ancients wished, close to trees and in an ancient area of ancient spirituality. These woods could be then protected as a heritage and conservation area.
The jars, vases etc taken from digs on the Mound of the Hostages, the bird pendants taken from Barronstown, the bridle and horse bits found at the Gabhra battle field, the Urns etc uprooted at sites along the M3 take could all be held in glass vaults, set around the inside walls of the old church at Tara. They do not make up a lot of articles, perhaps 20 at most.
The Ogham Stone which now stand alone along the roadside fence between Barronstown and Collierstown, marking out the site of the Gabhra Battle should be declared a protected structure as should the field in which it stands.
“On the Ogham it is written where the warriors fell”, The book of Leinster.
*The decorated stone, taken from the souteriann at Lismullen Woods could be set into the wall on the outside of the church.
*What is left under the ground in the valley should be now left there.
*Finally insist that the Hill of Tara be recognized as an area of Irish indigenous spirituality.
A weeks work and less than ten thousand Euros could facilitate all this.
Nb. Carrying Capacity.
As an environmentalist I place the concept of a carrying capacity at the very centre of life. The carrying capacity of a given area concerns itself with how many people can exist in that area, in harmony with its environment and ecology before the balance is tipped and nature looses. I believe that this is the single most important question facing mankind at a local, national and global level so we must start with our earth.
The carrying capacity of the earth is about two billion people. This was the level which human populations never breached until the industrial revolution started in 1820. Then as we broke free of the constraints of nature our numbers started to rise. Today the population of the earth is circa 6.6 billion, this will rise to 9.5 billion in 2050 and from there who knows! (UN 2008). This may fall but it is unlikely to ever again fall below 2 billion, the accepted sustainable and natural population of human beings. However this should be the line on which all human plans are based and one which we should all work towards. Going even some way to meeting this level of human population would take pressure off the eco systems of the earth, the ones it and we need for long term survival. Less people might mean less wars, less misery and less disease. It would give other creatures a chance of a natural life in safety and it would leave the hope of giving everyone a house, a job and basic health care a possibility.
If we accept this then we must ask: what is the carrying capacity for our own land; Ireland.
The optimal population on which environmental sanity, social cohesion and economic sustainability could be assured, long term on the island of Ireland is about 5 million people. Again this is the upper level and one never breached before the industrial revolution and one which started to rise about the same time. A few years ago researchers in Trinity College, using methods developed by the great Greek Philosopher Plato came to a similar conclusion. However the last CSO Population study shows that the population of Southern Ireland alone is destined to reach 7. 5 million people by the year 2040, (CSO 2008), half of whom will be foreigners. This growth is in temporary decline but time will readjust it upwards. During the boom Fianna Fail had a plan, sometimes acknowledged often not, to have the population of Ireland reach ten million as soon as possible. This, “more is better ideal”, is the one also loved by Capitalism and its adherents as it provides the human fuel for consumption, development and expansion. It should come as no surprise that the M3 was always sold on the need for a road due to a rising population in Meath. The opposition politics of Ireland, “The Left” if we can call them an opposition, are even more vehemently opposed to population reduction as it hinders their multi cultural dogma, their base for ther future model of our society.
A limit to anything it seems is beyond their view.
A population of 10-12 million people on the Ireland of Ireland would be twice the optimal level, i.e., twice the carrying capacity of our land and if you were to ask any engineer or scientist what would the likely outcome for any system that is overloaded by a factor of two be, they would in all probability shake their heads and issue a warning.
Yet we feel it normal and even desirable to do the same to our land and earth. Why?
Now telescoping our argument back down to where we started we must ask ourselves; “what is the carrying capacity of Tara”. How many people could access Tara yearly without endangering its monuments and ambience, considering first that these are soil monuments and subject to wear and decay? If we could establish this carrying capacity, (we could) how then could we maintain it?
The answer would mean closing off the Hill of Tara to all but a few local and spiritual seeking people, who revere, respect and cherish it.
Tara is not and never was a tourist site; it was in the words of the great historian and writer R.S.McAllester “A Pagan Sanctuary of Ancient Ireland”. It lasted for so long simply because it was revered and left alone. In its heyday Tara was off limits to all but a chosen few. History tells us that. Later there were a few monster meeting held on its hill but mostly it was empty of humans and their ways and so it and its mounds have survived. If it was always thus, always a place out of bounds to the masses, a spiritual place, a sanctuary, then should it not remain so?
It is now though being advertised as a must see site on all tourist websites, in brochures and in hotel lobbies. This brings in more people and more tourists and this means more busses. In time new places will have to be found to park them. This will then drag in other infrastructure like toilets, a bigger café and in time a hotel will be mooted as “needed”. From there things will grow as it always does. A built up tourist site Tara will become.
There are many instances however where governments had to fence off and limit the number of people wanting to visit sacred and special places simply to protect and save them. Newgrange and Stonehenge are just two of many examples. Doing what’s right may not be popular but it is right. Fencing off Tara and limiting the number of people who can access it is neither wrong nor a slight to its history. It was always so. It is also the only way we can assure its survival.
If you doubt this then take Rath Lugh. Two years ago Rath Lugh was a mess. People were camped on its roof, it was littered, its trees were been cut down and local youths were using quad bikes to race across it. Today it is fenced off and it has reverted to what it always was; a quiet tree lined burial ground of Fienien chieftains and ancient druids. Thanks to the fence the quad bikes are gone, gone too are the sportsmen who felt it fun to shoot the unfortunate wildlife who try to live there, gone are the campers and so nature has again reclaimed it. In just a year there is much regrowth and natural renewal. However anyone with a deep love of the place and who really wants to visit it can easily slip the fence and spend a few magical carefree and quiet hours under its green roof.
A carrying capacity puts limits on what mankind can do. It is mankind who threatens the earth; it is us who threaten Tara. We can all act responsibly now and finally say no, Tara comes before us and what we want. Or we can take the infantile path and put our wants above our needs and the needs of the place we claim to cherish. The wreckage from following want above need is easy to see: just go to the valley and look at the M3.
Putting a carrying capacity on the entire Tara/Skryne valley would be easy too. Use the census figures available and do not allow the population grow beyond this point. No more new “outsider” housing, no more factories or developments, just insist instead that if our government allows our population to grow then they must house and employ then within the existing city and town boundaries. This would do more than anything else to change the mind set “of more is better”, it would stop us turning our land into a litter strewn suburbia, it would introduce planning and caution to immigration and it would start to heal the wounds now open at Tara. Wounds caused by us doing what they want.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
A foolish Crime.
Temair of the cantred, and of the house,
without hurry, without frenzy of heroes,
was mother of the wealth of every tribe
till a foolish crime destroyed her.
The Metrical Dindschenchas. 1170.
Translated by Edward Gwynn. 1903.
A foolish crime has again destroyed Temair-Tara. Power hungry, corrupt and ego driven politicians have run the M3 road through its complex and the results of this stupidity has now come to haunt us.
An unforeseen recession has hurled back to us with alarming speed and suddenly everything seems to be going wrong. With every destroyed fort, fairy fort, henge and grave our luck has changed and it now runs out. By removing the soil circles, meeting places, ancient trodden paths, spiritual and magical places we have removed our prosperity, happiness and social cohesion. These have been removed from us by powers older and greater than us, powers which in the past helped us and gave us our identity. Had we studied this we could have discovered that this was not new.
Throughout history everyone who approached Tara with malignant intent was laid low. This includes the Vikings, Normans, British, and British Israelites. Even mighty Rome who once claimed absolute victory over Tara is finally in retreat.
Now we join this list because we did not have the sense or backbone of civilised people to undo the wrong done to Tara? Its no use complaining, we must face the results of our actions, we are all to blame. In the long thin years to come we will learn that to have allowed our once unique and spiritual heritage be bulldozed as though we were clearing away rubble was a mistake. A mistake that has pulled a shadow between us and the sun.
without hurry, without frenzy of heroes,
was mother of the wealth of every tribe
till a foolish crime destroyed her.
The Metrical Dindschenchas. 1170.
Translated by Edward Gwynn. 1903.
A foolish crime has again destroyed Temair-Tara. Power hungry, corrupt and ego driven politicians have run the M3 road through its complex and the results of this stupidity has now come to haunt us.
An unforeseen recession has hurled back to us with alarming speed and suddenly everything seems to be going wrong. With every destroyed fort, fairy fort, henge and grave our luck has changed and it now runs out. By removing the soil circles, meeting places, ancient trodden paths, spiritual and magical places we have removed our prosperity, happiness and social cohesion. These have been removed from us by powers older and greater than us, powers which in the past helped us and gave us our identity. Had we studied this we could have discovered that this was not new.
Throughout history everyone who approached Tara with malignant intent was laid low. This includes the Vikings, Normans, British, and British Israelites. Even mighty Rome who once claimed absolute victory over Tara is finally in retreat.
Now we join this list because we did not have the sense or backbone of civilised people to undo the wrong done to Tara? Its no use complaining, we must face the results of our actions, we are all to blame. In the long thin years to come we will learn that to have allowed our once unique and spiritual heritage be bulldozed as though we were clearing away rubble was a mistake. A mistake that has pulled a shadow between us and the sun.
The Destroyers Of Tara
In a few years the people who planned the M3 and then drove it through the Tara complex will in all probability deny it. They will point to planning boards, decisions made by others and words of warning they gave about the M3 and it's path. In time they will become not the destroyers of the Tara Complex but people who tried to save it. Dick Roche, the minister of the environment who gave the permission to destroy the henge at Lismullen has already started doing this. He is now moving from a destroyer to someone who was it's friend.
However the future generations of our children must know who destroyed the Tara complex and the impact that they have had on our land. Also it cannot be overlooked here that all political parties from 2000-2008, all of them, paid at best lip service to what was happenning to the Tara complex, if they did not join with Fianna Fail in aiding its destruction. That or look away.
So here are the destroyers of the Tara Complex.
*Mary McAlleese. Present of Ireland, 1997-to date, promoter of the rights of all cultures who found their way to Ireland but who allowed her own culture; our own culture and heritage be bulldozed and destroyed without either a word of caution or warning.
*Bertie Ahern, Taoiseach, Leader of Fianna Fail, under boss to Charles Haughey, a man who destabilized our democracy, described by Haughey as the most devious of all politicians, constantly in the shadow of corruption allegations, a man who with a sneer described Tara as a place where someone lived 5000 years ago and who said that if he knew that a king was up there (at Tara) he would not have troubled him. This man wiped his feet in the history, heritage and mythology of Ireland and he did the same to his duty to govern in the name of the common good.
*Noel Dempsey, Meath Fianna Fail politician, friend of land speculators, Minister Of The Environment at the time the M3 was planned, the man who more than any other made the M3 possible, a man whose actions has removed the term "Royal" from the county of Meath..
*Martin Cullen. Minister of the Environment after Dempsey, spineless bureaucrat who had the national monuments act changed to suit land speculation and road building thus removing the little protection our heritage and past had. He dug the opening sod in secret least he cause a protest.
*Dick Roche. Minister For the Environment as the river Dargle, which runs through his own constituency was so badly polluted that Garda divers who were forced to dive in it got sick. Destroyer of the Henge at Lismullen, a man who drank bottled water with highly paid drugged out models in the media glare as a water drinking warning was in place across the west of Ireland. Promoter now of the Lisbon Treaty, friend of Europe, enemy of its environmental laws.
*John Gormley. Green pretender and as Minister of the Environment since 2007 added to the destruction of the Tara Skryne valley. Refuses to call stop or acknowledge its destruction. Friend of Europe but not a friend of Ireland?
*Councilors Tommy Reilly and Nick Killian, Two Meath Fianna Fail thugs who went beyond their call of duty and ignored warnings and advice to push the M3 through their own homeland. Mr. Reilly stated on the Pat Kenny radio special from the Hill Of Tara in August 2007 that neither a pot nor pan had been found on the M3 route works. However Mr. Reilly lives beside the bronzed aged burial ground at Ardsallagh and knew that it had being cleared of its ancient bodies and then bulldozed to facilate the M3, he was aware that Barronstown, the site of the gathering of Harper's of Ireland, was also bulldozed at dawn just a few weeks before the radio programme and likewise that the Fianna burial ground at Collierstown was bulldozed and that... yet he went on air and lied to the Irish people. This lie sank the campaign in the eyes of many who were listening and who knew no better.
*Pat Kenny who was told about this lie after the show and was asked to not allowed these lies stand but he too decided to wipe his feet in all accepted journalistic standards and ethics and ignore the truth. In the days and weeks that followed he did not seek out or give a correction.
Reilly, Dempsey and Killian are names that should be written large into the history of Meath and Ireland. They destroyed the Tara Complex and used bullying tactics and blatant lies to hide it.
*The entire Fianna Fail, PD and Green cabinets who governed between 2002-2008, all of whom approved, implemented, aided or stayed quiet as the M3 was planned, implemented and bulldozed through the ancient soul of our land.
*All the so called political parties in Ireland who at best paid lip service to there duty with regards to Tara, who looked away as Ahern and his cabal made there move or helped them in the job.
***The Irish Media, who refused to do their duty and investigate. This poisoned and biased media worked against Irish culture, they ceaselessly promoted all foreign and third world cultures living in Ireland and held the rights of immigrant above the rights of native Irish people. Then they looked away as Tara was bulldozed. They too helped dig out and despoil the ancestor graves at Tara.
May the curse of Tara find them all.
However the future generations of our children must know who destroyed the Tara complex and the impact that they have had on our land. Also it cannot be overlooked here that all political parties from 2000-2008, all of them, paid at best lip service to what was happenning to the Tara complex, if they did not join with Fianna Fail in aiding its destruction. That or look away.
So here are the destroyers of the Tara Complex.
*Mary McAlleese. Present of Ireland, 1997-to date, promoter of the rights of all cultures who found their way to Ireland but who allowed her own culture; our own culture and heritage be bulldozed and destroyed without either a word of caution or warning.
*Bertie Ahern, Taoiseach, Leader of Fianna Fail, under boss to Charles Haughey, a man who destabilized our democracy, described by Haughey as the most devious of all politicians, constantly in the shadow of corruption allegations, a man who with a sneer described Tara as a place where someone lived 5000 years ago and who said that if he knew that a king was up there (at Tara) he would not have troubled him. This man wiped his feet in the history, heritage and mythology of Ireland and he did the same to his duty to govern in the name of the common good.
*Noel Dempsey, Meath Fianna Fail politician, friend of land speculators, Minister Of The Environment at the time the M3 was planned, the man who more than any other made the M3 possible, a man whose actions has removed the term "Royal" from the county of Meath..
*Martin Cullen. Minister of the Environment after Dempsey, spineless bureaucrat who had the national monuments act changed to suit land speculation and road building thus removing the little protection our heritage and past had. He dug the opening sod in secret least he cause a protest.
*Dick Roche. Minister For the Environment as the river Dargle, which runs through his own constituency was so badly polluted that Garda divers who were forced to dive in it got sick. Destroyer of the Henge at Lismullen, a man who drank bottled water with highly paid drugged out models in the media glare as a water drinking warning was in place across the west of Ireland. Promoter now of the Lisbon Treaty, friend of Europe, enemy of its environmental laws.
*John Gormley. Green pretender and as Minister of the Environment since 2007 added to the destruction of the Tara Skryne valley. Refuses to call stop or acknowledge its destruction. Friend of Europe but not a friend of Ireland?
*Councilors Tommy Reilly and Nick Killian, Two Meath Fianna Fail thugs who went beyond their call of duty and ignored warnings and advice to push the M3 through their own homeland. Mr. Reilly stated on the Pat Kenny radio special from the Hill Of Tara in August 2007 that neither a pot nor pan had been found on the M3 route works. However Mr. Reilly lives beside the bronzed aged burial ground at Ardsallagh and knew that it had being cleared of its ancient bodies and then bulldozed to facilate the M3, he was aware that Barronstown, the site of the gathering of Harper's of Ireland, was also bulldozed at dawn just a few weeks before the radio programme and likewise that the Fianna burial ground at Collierstown was bulldozed and that... yet he went on air and lied to the Irish people. This lie sank the campaign in the eyes of many who were listening and who knew no better.
*Pat Kenny who was told about this lie after the show and was asked to not allowed these lies stand but he too decided to wipe his feet in all accepted journalistic standards and ethics and ignore the truth. In the days and weeks that followed he did not seek out or give a correction.
Reilly, Dempsey and Killian are names that should be written large into the history of Meath and Ireland. They destroyed the Tara Complex and used bullying tactics and blatant lies to hide it.
*The entire Fianna Fail, PD and Green cabinets who governed between 2002-2008, all of whom approved, implemented, aided or stayed quiet as the M3 was planned, implemented and bulldozed through the ancient soul of our land.
*All the so called political parties in Ireland who at best paid lip service to there duty with regards to Tara, who looked away as Ahern and his cabal made there move or helped them in the job.
***The Irish Media, who refused to do their duty and investigate. This poisoned and biased media worked against Irish culture, they ceaselessly promoted all foreign and third world cultures living in Ireland and held the rights of immigrant above the rights of native Irish people. Then they looked away as Tara was bulldozed. They too helped dig out and despoil the ancestor graves at Tara.
May the curse of Tara find them all.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Rath Lugh Letters
Letter sent to Environment Minister, National Monuments Office, Coillte etc.
Easter 2009.
Dear Sir or Madam
On Easter Sunday I was on Rath Lugh. The security men have gone and once more any person can walk into this marvellous place unmolested. The M3 has indeed become the scar on the land that many feared it would but the planting that has been done on the roadside edge of the Rath is to be welcomed. Someone has been cutting up old trees in the Rath and the cleared spaces are visible and troubling. Also tracks of heavy vehicles are visible in the ground and if we are to accept that many traces of our past are on the surface of the Rath, including old circles, henge outlines etc, then care must be legislated for here. It is vital that the entire Rath/Esker be fenced off to all but forest workers and walkers. The Rath is not just a normal wood but perhaps a repository of many things yet to be discovered and connected to Tara's past.
Before the Rath was fenced off last March it was been used by local lads to ride quad bikes around. It was heavy littered with shotgun cartridges and its perimeter was been used as a dumping ground. If the fencing is removed this will happen again. Can Rath Lugh not become a template for a better understanding on how we treat our small woods?
If the perimeter had proper fencing and if some new tree planting were to take place in the Rath’s interior where they are needed then Rath Lugh could come away from the M3 mauling in some way intact. I feel that many people would not object to work placements or work relief schemes in environmental protection here, if such were offered. With unemployment growing this may be badly needed. Rath Lugh could be fixed up for a very small price and if a proper archaeological investigation was done to it then it might be allow take the place of importance it once had. The many people who love it could again be glad.
There are just three small woods in the Tara/Skryne valley; Rath Lugh wood, The Commons wood and Lismullen wood. All three are too small to be commercially viable or important and so all three have been ran down and are now seriously neglected. However they are very rich in wildlife. There are many badger sets in these woods, also insect, birdlife and fungal life. This includes the fungus Sarcoscypha austriaca which mycologist Edmund Gardweidner in Collins Nature Guide to British and Irish Mushrooms and Toadstools says is rare and should be protected. There are birds of prey in the Commons wood and they too need protection. With a bit of care and attention these places could become examples on how to proceed in future woodland management and we could finally do what we should do and protect the parts of our land not yet ruined. They can become area’s of special conservation or we can allow them fall into neglect and watch them become places of mindless amusement or worse; and or eventually be clear felled and planted for wood pulp.
Coillte must now live up to its responsibilities and see the entire esker and wood for what it is; a central part of the Tara Skryne valley archaeological complex.
In the years to come a small group of people intend to keep an eye on these woods, we intend to document how they are being treated and we shall post these reports on. Please see to it that a proper management policy is put into place there as soon as possible.
Any information that you send on will be appreciated and we can work from there.
Yours sincerely
John.
Reply Recieved.
Dear Mr …
My name is … and I am an ecologist working with Coillte. Your email concerning Rath Lugh woods has been passed on to me. Firstly, I have not yet visited the site on the ground so I wish to preface my remarks in that context.
I intend to visit the woods with the local forest manager and the district manager but I thought you might like to know more about our woodland management plans in general. The site at Rath Lugh has no National or European Designations for nature conservation (i.e. Special Area of Conservation or Natural Heritage Area) but this does not preclude it in any way for being important for nature conservation. Part of the woodland is classified, however, by Coillte as being an "Old Woodland" which implies that the land has had some form of continuous forest cover in place since at least 1830. This old woodland survey was conducted by Coillte in 2001 to identify such areas across the Coillte estate. I can send you more information on this survey if you would like.
All of Coillte's 13 Districts across the country have designated certain areas of their lands for nature conservation and biodiversity and indeed a minimum of 15% of each District area is required for this purpose. Rath Lugh lies within District N3 which has designated 23% of its area for this purpose. At present the management designation for the area is one of low impact silviculture. Old woodlands like Rath Lugh are managed according to Coillte's Old Woodland Policy which aims to maintain and enhance characteristics of old woodlands where they occur. Again I can send you a copy of this policy if you are interested.
In terms of rare species and habitats that occur on Coillte lands, the best areas for species protection have been identified for Coillte by independent ecologists and are now included into this 15% of each District. Nevertheless, some rare species naturally do occur outside of these areas and Coillte has a system of recording small features of biodiversity to protect rare habitats and species and other features of nature conservation interest. All of the results of the ecological surveys are stored in a database which forest managers may use to manage these areas accordingly. This database is further supported by a suite of practical guidelines, (again prepared for Coillte by independent ecologists) which direct forest managers with sound ecological guidance for working in these areas.
Coillte welcomes all visitors to its forests according to the "Leave No Trace" principles but does not encourage the use of scramblers or quad bikes in general areas for a variety of environmental and health and safety reasons.
I will contact you again following a visit to the woods in question when I should be able to address you concerns more directly,
In the meantime, please feel free to contact me if I have been unclear or you would like clarification on any of the above,
Best wishes
…Coillte Ecologist
My Reply.
Dear …
I hope this finds you well.
Thanks for the reply to my email about Rath Lugh. It is good to know that such databases exist and that such work has been done. Any reports or papers that you could send me would be welcome.
Unfortunately most of the woods I visit seem neglected, litter strewn and badly in need of rejuvenation. On the continent where I lived for years it was never so. We alone seem content to allow this happen.
Rath Lugh is different from almost all other woods as I tried to explain. In its totality, as a wood and esker it appeared in the mythological cycles of our literature under various names; The Fort of the Gabhra, The Fort of the Old Men, The Fort of the Druids etc. This in its totality and not just as one small if national monument now out on its edge.
Under its various names it is mentioned in the Lays Of Finn, The Metrical Dindschenchas, The Book Of Leinster etc. The late Elizabeth Hickey done much important work on Rath Lugh and gave it a position of major importance. Her work is to be found in many libraries and in the National Monuments Office. Other notes and writings to be found in the National Monuments Office also describe the Rath as having many monuments on its surface including the Mound of the Druids which is the national monument, a large C-shaped enclosure, possibly a henge and burial place, six other grave sites plus a large unnamed mound out near the back road.
The Rath is described in the Fenian Cycle as being the burial place of Na Fianna warrior chieftains and the large grave that was dug on the Hill of the Gabhra to bury a Na Fianna chieftain as described in the aftermath of the Gabhra battle could be made fit the large C-shaped enclosure. The historian R.S McAllister also hinted that Rath Lugh could be “a burial place of the sun” symbolism which is again connected to the Fenian myths.
In 2007 the NRA described the just discovered Henge at Lismullen as connected to nearby Rath Lugh.
A slow careful walk on the surface of the Rath today shows many of these shapes and traces, still visible if now being eroded. That they lasted so long is proof of the care in which it was once held.
All in all the Rath and wood has connections to our past, its warrior myths and the old religion of Druidism. To protect these we need not just an ecological survey but an dept archaeological and historic investigation too.
Seamus Heaney recently said that we need our past to provide us with a continuum, linking the past, present and future. I believe that this is important if we do not risk becoming a disconnected zombie type people. We also need tourists now and the jobs they will bring like we never needed them before. They would come to visit such magical places, places which many foreign people believe Ireland has and which Irish people care for but they will not come to see wreckage and destruction cause not by need but by greed, ignorance and blind indifference. The M3 was a road driven by such forces.
Coillte have a mission statement which promises to care for and protect historic places so please get to work on this. As I have said before Rath Lugh in its entirety can be protected in a new start now that the wreckage of the Celtic Tiger falls about us but if it is again to be mauled and destroyed we gain nothing except the condemnation of those who watch us and our land in disbelief.
As I have already said a small group of us are documenting what is happening and if further destruction is allowed we intend to lay the blame this time where it belongs.
Good luck,
John.
Reply Recieved From Coillte In October 2009.
Dear John,
many thanks for your email and for the information you supplied me on Rath Lugh woods,
as I mentioned to you in my previous email I intended to visit the woods on the ground with the local forest manager and district manager and did so also accompanied by Coillte's archaeologist as I am not an expert in these matters,
You were correct in mentioning that there is a fence in place at the perimeter of the woods. The forest manager informed me that this was erected by the National Roads Authority during an occupation of the woods by protestors of the M3 motorway.
Our intention is to have this fence removed as I motioned to you that Coillte have an open forest policy and encourage all members to visit woodlands according to the "leave no trace" philosophy.
I understand and share your concerns about illegal use of quad bikes and scrambler motorcycles in the woodlands and fully acknowledge the damage they can and do cause to the forest floor but our approach to dealing with these issues is to generally liaise with the local community and try to inform and educate rather than exclude through erecting fences. We are in the process of providing a dedicated forest area in the Dublin Mountains for motorised recreation and we would encourage all members of the public to use these dedicated areas for recreation of this nature. We also rely on the local community to contact the forest manager when such breaches occur who can then take appropriate actions.
In terms of woodland management at Rath Lugh I mentioned to you that this is an old woodland site which implies a continuous forest cover since at least 1830 and possibly long before that also. I have attached a copy of our old woodland survey which will give you more information on old woodlands on the Coillte estate. Our management plan for Rath Lugh woods is one of continuous cover forestry which implies that no clear cutting will occur at this site. Trees will be harvested sensitively when they are mature in such a way that a forest canopy will always remain and hence the woodland will retain its characteristics. Such low impact silvicultural methods are particularly appropriate for woodlands like Rath Lugh. Coillte conduct a site assessment ahead of any operations on old woodlands and if you like I can show you a copy of this assessment form which is designed to identify and protect characteristics of old woodlands where they occur.
The forest at Rath Lugh is primarily a beech plantation and trees were planted here between the 1950s and 1970s although there are records of trees here back to at least 1840. Beech is known to grow a dense lush canopy it also casts a deep shade onto the forest floor. These dark conditions preclude many woodland plants but where there are gaps in the canopy, especially around some of the features you mention a good woodland flora has developed. I observed clearly as you mentioned earthen banks through the woodland and a large mound feature in the centre of the woods. This earthen mound was not planted with trees at the time, the forest workers most likely recognising the significance of the mound at the time, and as a result, the tree cover here is predominately of native species such as elder, elm, ash but also some sycamore and beech. The ground flora is also well developed here.
Coillte's policy during any operations around sensitive cultural features such as earthen mounds and banks is to minimise any damage to such features by marking them clearly on maps and showing them to operators and advising them to steer clear. Generally management around such small features of biodiversity and nature conservation value aims to protect and enhance them where possible and in this light the management plan of continuous cover forestry here in Rath Lugh sits well with this approach.
It must also be said however, that there has been a good deal of disturbance to the woods and to the forest floor which appears to have been caused by occupation of the woods. There are signs of nutrient enrichment with large clusters of nettle growth and evidence of timber cutting and burning. Having said that, the woodlands are resilient and I believe this sort of damage will not cause any long term negative impacts on the woodland given sufficient time to recover.
As you mentioned to me in your last email message that your group will continue to keep a watch on Rath Lugh; I would say to you that I welcome such vigilance and would ask you where you see anything you believe to be untoward occurring to contact us and let us know. In this way we can all contribute to ensuring a solid future for the woodland.
In addition, since June of this year new Bye-Laws have been introduced addressing areas such as access, litter, use of vehicles or bikes, dogs, unauthorised persons & the illegal use of firearms on coillte property. These laws will allow the forest manager contact Gardai should illegal activities be observed in the woods
I hope this message addresses some of your concerns about Rath Lugh woods
...
The process is ongoing and I will post up the results.
Easter 2009.
Dear Sir or Madam
On Easter Sunday I was on Rath Lugh. The security men have gone and once more any person can walk into this marvellous place unmolested. The M3 has indeed become the scar on the land that many feared it would but the planting that has been done on the roadside edge of the Rath is to be welcomed. Someone has been cutting up old trees in the Rath and the cleared spaces are visible and troubling. Also tracks of heavy vehicles are visible in the ground and if we are to accept that many traces of our past are on the surface of the Rath, including old circles, henge outlines etc, then care must be legislated for here. It is vital that the entire Rath/Esker be fenced off to all but forest workers and walkers. The Rath is not just a normal wood but perhaps a repository of many things yet to be discovered and connected to Tara's past.
Before the Rath was fenced off last March it was been used by local lads to ride quad bikes around. It was heavy littered with shotgun cartridges and its perimeter was been used as a dumping ground. If the fencing is removed this will happen again. Can Rath Lugh not become a template for a better understanding on how we treat our small woods?
If the perimeter had proper fencing and if some new tree planting were to take place in the Rath’s interior where they are needed then Rath Lugh could come away from the M3 mauling in some way intact. I feel that many people would not object to work placements or work relief schemes in environmental protection here, if such were offered. With unemployment growing this may be badly needed. Rath Lugh could be fixed up for a very small price and if a proper archaeological investigation was done to it then it might be allow take the place of importance it once had. The many people who love it could again be glad.
There are just three small woods in the Tara/Skryne valley; Rath Lugh wood, The Commons wood and Lismullen wood. All three are too small to be commercially viable or important and so all three have been ran down and are now seriously neglected. However they are very rich in wildlife. There are many badger sets in these woods, also insect, birdlife and fungal life. This includes the fungus Sarcoscypha austriaca which mycologist Edmund Gardweidner in Collins Nature Guide to British and Irish Mushrooms and Toadstools says is rare and should be protected. There are birds of prey in the Commons wood and they too need protection. With a bit of care and attention these places could become examples on how to proceed in future woodland management and we could finally do what we should do and protect the parts of our land not yet ruined. They can become area’s of special conservation or we can allow them fall into neglect and watch them become places of mindless amusement or worse; and or eventually be clear felled and planted for wood pulp.
Coillte must now live up to its responsibilities and see the entire esker and wood for what it is; a central part of the Tara Skryne valley archaeological complex.
In the years to come a small group of people intend to keep an eye on these woods, we intend to document how they are being treated and we shall post these reports on. Please see to it that a proper management policy is put into place there as soon as possible.
Any information that you send on will be appreciated and we can work from there.
Yours sincerely
John.
Reply Recieved.
Dear Mr …
My name is … and I am an ecologist working with Coillte. Your email concerning Rath Lugh woods has been passed on to me. Firstly, I have not yet visited the site on the ground so I wish to preface my remarks in that context.
I intend to visit the woods with the local forest manager and the district manager but I thought you might like to know more about our woodland management plans in general. The site at Rath Lugh has no National or European Designations for nature conservation (i.e. Special Area of Conservation or Natural Heritage Area) but this does not preclude it in any way for being important for nature conservation. Part of the woodland is classified, however, by Coillte as being an "Old Woodland" which implies that the land has had some form of continuous forest cover in place since at least 1830. This old woodland survey was conducted by Coillte in 2001 to identify such areas across the Coillte estate. I can send you more information on this survey if you would like.
All of Coillte's 13 Districts across the country have designated certain areas of their lands for nature conservation and biodiversity and indeed a minimum of 15% of each District area is required for this purpose. Rath Lugh lies within District N3 which has designated 23% of its area for this purpose. At present the management designation for the area is one of low impact silviculture. Old woodlands like Rath Lugh are managed according to Coillte's Old Woodland Policy which aims to maintain and enhance characteristics of old woodlands where they occur. Again I can send you a copy of this policy if you are interested.
In terms of rare species and habitats that occur on Coillte lands, the best areas for species protection have been identified for Coillte by independent ecologists and are now included into this 15% of each District. Nevertheless, some rare species naturally do occur outside of these areas and Coillte has a system of recording small features of biodiversity to protect rare habitats and species and other features of nature conservation interest. All of the results of the ecological surveys are stored in a database which forest managers may use to manage these areas accordingly. This database is further supported by a suite of practical guidelines, (again prepared for Coillte by independent ecologists) which direct forest managers with sound ecological guidance for working in these areas.
Coillte welcomes all visitors to its forests according to the "Leave No Trace" principles but does not encourage the use of scramblers or quad bikes in general areas for a variety of environmental and health and safety reasons.
I will contact you again following a visit to the woods in question when I should be able to address you concerns more directly,
In the meantime, please feel free to contact me if I have been unclear or you would like clarification on any of the above,
Best wishes
…Coillte Ecologist
My Reply.
Dear …
I hope this finds you well.
Thanks for the reply to my email about Rath Lugh. It is good to know that such databases exist and that such work has been done. Any reports or papers that you could send me would be welcome.
Unfortunately most of the woods I visit seem neglected, litter strewn and badly in need of rejuvenation. On the continent where I lived for years it was never so. We alone seem content to allow this happen.
Rath Lugh is different from almost all other woods as I tried to explain. In its totality, as a wood and esker it appeared in the mythological cycles of our literature under various names; The Fort of the Gabhra, The Fort of the Old Men, The Fort of the Druids etc. This in its totality and not just as one small if national monument now out on its edge.
Under its various names it is mentioned in the Lays Of Finn, The Metrical Dindschenchas, The Book Of Leinster etc. The late Elizabeth Hickey done much important work on Rath Lugh and gave it a position of major importance. Her work is to be found in many libraries and in the National Monuments Office. Other notes and writings to be found in the National Monuments Office also describe the Rath as having many monuments on its surface including the Mound of the Druids which is the national monument, a large C-shaped enclosure, possibly a henge and burial place, six other grave sites plus a large unnamed mound out near the back road.
The Rath is described in the Fenian Cycle as being the burial place of Na Fianna warrior chieftains and the large grave that was dug on the Hill of the Gabhra to bury a Na Fianna chieftain as described in the aftermath of the Gabhra battle could be made fit the large C-shaped enclosure. The historian R.S McAllister also hinted that Rath Lugh could be “a burial place of the sun” symbolism which is again connected to the Fenian myths.
In 2007 the NRA described the just discovered Henge at Lismullen as connected to nearby Rath Lugh.
A slow careful walk on the surface of the Rath today shows many of these shapes and traces, still visible if now being eroded. That they lasted so long is proof of the care in which it was once held.
All in all the Rath and wood has connections to our past, its warrior myths and the old religion of Druidism. To protect these we need not just an ecological survey but an dept archaeological and historic investigation too.
Seamus Heaney recently said that we need our past to provide us with a continuum, linking the past, present and future. I believe that this is important if we do not risk becoming a disconnected zombie type people. We also need tourists now and the jobs they will bring like we never needed them before. They would come to visit such magical places, places which many foreign people believe Ireland has and which Irish people care for but they will not come to see wreckage and destruction cause not by need but by greed, ignorance and blind indifference. The M3 was a road driven by such forces.
Coillte have a mission statement which promises to care for and protect historic places so please get to work on this. As I have said before Rath Lugh in its entirety can be protected in a new start now that the wreckage of the Celtic Tiger falls about us but if it is again to be mauled and destroyed we gain nothing except the condemnation of those who watch us and our land in disbelief.
As I have already said a small group of us are documenting what is happening and if further destruction is allowed we intend to lay the blame this time where it belongs.
Good luck,
John.
Reply Recieved From Coillte In October 2009.
Dear John,
many thanks for your email and for the information you supplied me on Rath Lugh woods,
as I mentioned to you in my previous email I intended to visit the woods on the ground with the local forest manager and district manager and did so also accompanied by Coillte's archaeologist as I am not an expert in these matters,
You were correct in mentioning that there is a fence in place at the perimeter of the woods. The forest manager informed me that this was erected by the National Roads Authority during an occupation of the woods by protestors of the M3 motorway.
Our intention is to have this fence removed as I motioned to you that Coillte have an open forest policy and encourage all members to visit woodlands according to the "leave no trace" philosophy.
I understand and share your concerns about illegal use of quad bikes and scrambler motorcycles in the woodlands and fully acknowledge the damage they can and do cause to the forest floor but our approach to dealing with these issues is to generally liaise with the local community and try to inform and educate rather than exclude through erecting fences. We are in the process of providing a dedicated forest area in the Dublin Mountains for motorised recreation and we would encourage all members of the public to use these dedicated areas for recreation of this nature. We also rely on the local community to contact the forest manager when such breaches occur who can then take appropriate actions.
In terms of woodland management at Rath Lugh I mentioned to you that this is an old woodland site which implies a continuous forest cover since at least 1830 and possibly long before that also. I have attached a copy of our old woodland survey which will give you more information on old woodlands on the Coillte estate. Our management plan for Rath Lugh woods is one of continuous cover forestry which implies that no clear cutting will occur at this site. Trees will be harvested sensitively when they are mature in such a way that a forest canopy will always remain and hence the woodland will retain its characteristics. Such low impact silvicultural methods are particularly appropriate for woodlands like Rath Lugh. Coillte conduct a site assessment ahead of any operations on old woodlands and if you like I can show you a copy of this assessment form which is designed to identify and protect characteristics of old woodlands where they occur.
The forest at Rath Lugh is primarily a beech plantation and trees were planted here between the 1950s and 1970s although there are records of trees here back to at least 1840. Beech is known to grow a dense lush canopy it also casts a deep shade onto the forest floor. These dark conditions preclude many woodland plants but where there are gaps in the canopy, especially around some of the features you mention a good woodland flora has developed. I observed clearly as you mentioned earthen banks through the woodland and a large mound feature in the centre of the woods. This earthen mound was not planted with trees at the time, the forest workers most likely recognising the significance of the mound at the time, and as a result, the tree cover here is predominately of native species such as elder, elm, ash but also some sycamore and beech. The ground flora is also well developed here.
Coillte's policy during any operations around sensitive cultural features such as earthen mounds and banks is to minimise any damage to such features by marking them clearly on maps and showing them to operators and advising them to steer clear. Generally management around such small features of biodiversity and nature conservation value aims to protect and enhance them where possible and in this light the management plan of continuous cover forestry here in Rath Lugh sits well with this approach.
It must also be said however, that there has been a good deal of disturbance to the woods and to the forest floor which appears to have been caused by occupation of the woods. There are signs of nutrient enrichment with large clusters of nettle growth and evidence of timber cutting and burning. Having said that, the woodlands are resilient and I believe this sort of damage will not cause any long term negative impacts on the woodland given sufficient time to recover.
As you mentioned to me in your last email message that your group will continue to keep a watch on Rath Lugh; I would say to you that I welcome such vigilance and would ask you where you see anything you believe to be untoward occurring to contact us and let us know. In this way we can all contribute to ensuring a solid future for the woodland.
In addition, since June of this year new Bye-Laws have been introduced addressing areas such as access, litter, use of vehicles or bikes, dogs, unauthorised persons & the illegal use of firearms on coillte property. These laws will allow the forest manager contact Gardai should illegal activities be observed in the woods
I hope this message addresses some of your concerns about Rath Lugh woods
...
The process is ongoing and I will post up the results.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Missing Stone
Letter sent to OPW, National Monuments Office,etc.
Dear Sir or Madam,
I hope this finds you well.
I am making enquiries about a stone which was once at Tara. It was known as the Lia bfiann or stone of the warriors. It was mentioned in the Metrical Dindschenchas as being east of the road, (the road which goes southwards past the church and churchyard). It is to be found on all old maps of Tara and it is on maps issued in the early part of this century, as late as 1920 yet it is now missing. Do you have any information on this or do you know anyone who might have.
I can place the stone on maps as been just opposite the churchyard wall, perhaps on the opposite side of the road, about three meters from the church. It must have been a major and large standing stone.
Any information etc would be welcome.
Yours sincerely ...
Letter sent to Lismullen Institute.
Dear Sir or Madam,
I hope this finds you well.
I am making enquiries about a stone which was once at Tara. It was known as the Lia bfiann or stone of the warriors. It was mentioned in the Metrical Dindschenchas as being east of the road, (the road which goes southwards past the church and churchyard). It is to be found on all old maps of Tara and it is on maps issued in the early part of this century, as late as 1920 yet it is now missing.
In a book on the excavations carried out on the Rath of the Synod it is mentioned that an alter stone was removed from Tara in the sixties and used as a lintel or flag stone in Lismullen house. Do you have any record of this? Do you know anyone who has knowledge of it?
I can place the stone on maps as been just opposite the churchyard wall, perhaps on the opposite side of the road, about three meters from the church. It must have been a major and large standing stone.
Any information etc would be welcome.
Yours sincerely
...
Reply from Lismullin Institute to me
Dear…,
Thank you for your email.
I will investigate your query and will let you know.
Best regards,
...
Lismullen Institute.
The OPW etc have as of yet not replied.
Dear Sir or Madam,
I hope this finds you well.
I am making enquiries about a stone which was once at Tara. It was known as the Lia bfiann or stone of the warriors. It was mentioned in the Metrical Dindschenchas as being east of the road, (the road which goes southwards past the church and churchyard). It is to be found on all old maps of Tara and it is on maps issued in the early part of this century, as late as 1920 yet it is now missing. Do you have any information on this or do you know anyone who might have.
I can place the stone on maps as been just opposite the churchyard wall, perhaps on the opposite side of the road, about three meters from the church. It must have been a major and large standing stone.
Any information etc would be welcome.
Yours sincerely ...
Letter sent to Lismullen Institute.
Dear Sir or Madam,
I hope this finds you well.
I am making enquiries about a stone which was once at Tara. It was known as the Lia bfiann or stone of the warriors. It was mentioned in the Metrical Dindschenchas as being east of the road, (the road which goes southwards past the church and churchyard). It is to be found on all old maps of Tara and it is on maps issued in the early part of this century, as late as 1920 yet it is now missing.
In a book on the excavations carried out on the Rath of the Synod it is mentioned that an alter stone was removed from Tara in the sixties and used as a lintel or flag stone in Lismullen house. Do you have any record of this? Do you know anyone who has knowledge of it?
I can place the stone on maps as been just opposite the churchyard wall, perhaps on the opposite side of the road, about three meters from the church. It must have been a major and large standing stone.
Any information etc would be welcome.
Yours sincerely
...
Reply from Lismullin Institute to me
Dear…,
Thank you for your email.
I will investigate your query and will let you know.
Best regards,
...
Lismullen Institute.
The OPW etc have as of yet not replied.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
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