Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past by failing to protect our heritage
The power to allow virtually unlimited Ministerial discretion to destroy national monuments was used most egregiously to allow construction of the M3 motorway through the Tara-Skryne Valley in County Meath, home to the Hill of Tara, ancient seat of power in Ireland.
In the last few decades, Ireland’s heritage law framework has been structurally enfeebled to facilitate short-termist development, particularly under-used high-carbon motorways, illegal quarries and ghost estates of the Celtic Tiger era. This month, however, TDs have the chance to ensure proper protection for Ireland’s cultural heritage.
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The Historic and Archaeological Heritage Bill 2023 (the Bill) overhauls Ireland’s main cultural heritage legislation and is currently before the Dáil for debate (second stage). While the draft Bill contains some merit, we are of the view that it needs further amendment to reflect international best practice and not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
The undermining of heritage protection has been enabled by a disproportionate discretion on the part of the Minister to sign off on the destruction of sites of historic and cultural importance. This stands in stark contrast to the fines and prison sentences in the law for members of the public who damage or demolish monuments.
The law began from quite a strong position. In the 1970s, one of the largest sites of Viking settlement outside of Scandinavia was found remarkably intact at Wood Quay, between Christ Church cathedral and the River Liffey in Dublin. The Irish government used for the first time a power in the National Monuments Act 1930 which allowed destruction of a national monument with joint consent of the local authority (in this case Dublin Corporation) and the Commissioners of Public Works.
Archaeologists were allowed only a restricted and hasty archaeological excavation before much of the medieval city walls were bulldozed and the cement trucks rolled in to build Dublin Corporation’s civic offices, nicknamed ‘the bunkers’.
Many commentators maintain that this was a ‘watershed’ moment in Irish cultural heritage law and policy - where the Supreme Court ruled in favour of developers despite a clearly expressed democratic consensus and public protests of 20,000 strong led by Friends of Medieval Dublin and future President Mary Robinson.
Public outcry was substantial. In the early 1990s, Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht Michael D Higgins (our current President) put forward the National Monuments (Amendment) Act 1994 which introduced several safeguards to ensure that Wood Quay would never happen again. These included a requirement that the Minister gain permission from the National Museum and the Houses of the Oireachtas before using such powers of consent to interfere with or demolish national monuments.
The 1994 protections were eroded as the Celtic Tiger, and its accompanying lax approach to planning and the ethics of public office, began in earnest.
The discovery of a number of archaeological sites during extensive motorway construction in the early 2000s roused significant public opposition and was perceived to be causing too much delay. The then Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Martin Cullen, amended legislation with the National Monuments (Amendment) Act 2004 to allow virtually unlimited Ministerial discretion to destroy national monuments and included a provision specifically to facilitate road development.
This power was used most egregiously to allow construction of the M3 motorway through the Tara-Skryne Valley in County Meath, home to the Hill of Tara, ancient seat of power in Ireland. In one of his final acts of office in 2007, former Environment Minister Dick Roche declared that a rare 'wood-henge' structure at Lismullen discovered in the path of the motorway was a national monument. Once this designation was placed in the record and an archaeological excavation had occurred, Roche promptly signed an order for its destruction using the 2004 legislation.
Although there are several improvements in the 2023 Bill, this wide Ministerial discretion remains and there is a lack of acknowledgment of the important role of local heritage groups in safeguarding and caring for Ireland’s heritage. Indeed, as the recent Moore Street case shows, whether a monument is of national importance is not a question for national or local community historians, the National Museum, or the wider public and their representatives. The power to designate a national monument is solely reserved for one Minister.
Since the 2004 Act was the subject of legal proceedings before the European Court of Justice, the legislation now requires that an environmental impact assessment (EIA) be conducted, including along approved road projects. However, demolition can still occur even after an EIA.
Indeed, the Bill absolves projects from having to conduct an EIA if they have been in operation for a long period of time, such as quarries. The Hill of Allen, legendary training ground of Fionn MacCumhaill and the Fianna, has been quarried since at least 1952 but with increasing intensity since the early 2000s to support building projects.
Another issue is that despite the title of the Historic and Archaeological Heritage Bill 2023, the legislation focuses mainly on protecting Ireland’s archaeological heritage, and in a very narrow sense. Protection for heritage as the wider public understands it — historic, local, cultural, environmental, literary, or folkloric — is not sufficiently provided for.
In the case of Tara, it was not just the archaeological landscape that was the subject of the controversy but its emplacement in a wider cultural landscape which had historical, cultural, associative importance for the island as a whole and the wider diaspora. This was evident from the SDLP issuing a motion in the Northern Ireland Assembly to halt the M3 motorway, and outcry from the European Association of Archaeologists, the American Institute of Archaeologists, and over 370 academics who wrote an open letter to the Irish government.
More local, everyday sites believed to be archaeologically insignificant or ‘numerous’ such as holy wells, ringforts or fairy forts can be removed from the landscape despite their wider cultural, religious, folkloric resonance and their importance for biodiversity.
Another example is the Cobblestone pub in Dublin, which was recently threatened by a hotel development that included plans to retain the physical pub and façade but reduce the interior floor space including its backroom, its culture and public purpose. This led to major protests under the banner of #DublinIsDying. Over 700 submissions were made from the public, highlighting the need to protect the cultural site for the traditional music scene in Dublin, Irish language classes, dancing, and impromptu sessions. Wider issues of the lack of housing in Dublin undermining cultural development were also raised.
The hotel development was refused planning permission, but the refusal had to refer back to skyline views and material building fabric, rather than core issues of concern for citizens which was its intangible cultural heritage. Ireland is party to the 2003 UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and traditional Irish music is on the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The protection of cultural spaces essential for the practice of those cultural elements are central to this convention and that link needs greater recognition in the Bill.
Finally, this Bill is foreshadowed by greater and more troubling developments. Major revisions of the Planning and Development Acts are under way, introducing a more centralised planning system, watered-down public participation and democratic engagement, and the reduction of standing for judicial reviews.
These changes in the planning law framework walk back provisions on public participation agreed to by Ireland under the European Landscape Convention and several other international treaties and also ignore the important role played by local heritage groups in caring for local heritage sites, including vernacular heritage. The effect is to limit as much as possible the public’s ability to participate in decision-making on how our landscapes — cultural, ecological, historic, and physical — should be shaped.
Our heritage is not a dead end, held “hostage to a romantic cliché” as Michael Cronin has put it, but a living future. It’s heartening to hear that the Minister of State, Malcolm Noonan, has agreed to take a number of these issues into consideration in several amendments; we will follow these with interest. It’s time to put past lessons into practice.
