Tara saga — go see for yourself

THE current Heritage Week advertisement invites us to “look forward, look back and look around”.

This week is indeed an opportune time to visit the Hill of Tara and the Hill of Skryne before the M3 motorway changes the nature of Tara’s contested landscape irrevocably.

Perhaps the best place from which to observe the first phases of this transformation is at the point where the M3 corridor crosses the River Gabhra, close to the newly-discovered national monument at Lismullen.

Travelling northwards along the N3 from Dunshaughlin towards Navan, take the right-hand turn at Garlow Cross, which is immediately after the site works at Blundelstown and Castletown Tara.

Proceed along this road for a few hundred metres before taking the right-hand fork in the road and, a little further on, another right turn down a narrow leafy lane which leads to more site works at Lismullen.

From this vantage point it is possible to observe the broad expanse of the Gabhra Valley stretching northwards between the hills of Tara and Skryne.

In the near distance, through the security fencing and felled trees, are the archaeological excavations at Lismullen and beyond it, the partially bulldozed, tree-covered spur of land on which the ancient, strategically placed fortification of Rathlugh stands proudly sentinel over Tara’s royal demesne.

This moment in time presents a unique opportunity for us all to learn a little bit more about Tara and the M3 as one can observe at first hand the uncomfortable juxtaposition of archaeological monument, royal landscape and profit-driven progress — an unlovely marriage of past, present and unsustainable future.

Joe Fenwick

Department of Archaeology

NUI Galway