Machines crush our heritage and hearts

IT comes as no surprise that the seven-year struggle for people to be heard on the Tara/M3 catastrophe should culminate in arrests and imprisonment. It is indeed a sorry day for democracy when a society fails so miserably to listen to its own citizens; when people find the only option left is physically to resist the destruction of that which they care about.

The action of those who stand in front of machinery is simply the logical outer expression of frustration and hopelessness that many of us feel in our hearts about the Tara/M3 tragedy.

It may be a small number of people who are prepared to put their bodies in the way of heavy machinery, but many are deeply upset about what is happening there.

Where is right and wrong in all of this? The ‘system’ just ploughs on regardless and those really responsible are not held accountable.

It seems that moral arguments and concerns about deeper values are being rolled over like the national monuments and rain-soaked fields of the Tara-Skryne valley. What a sorry state of affairs for a country once proudly known as the Island of Saints and Scholars.

Claire Oakes

Bellinter

Navan

Co Meath