Tara at the crossroads of history

TARA is under threat. The National Roads Authority continues to perpetuate the fiction that Tara is confined to the cluster of monuments on the hilltop. This is not the case.

The hilltop is but one element of what our ancestors understood Tara to be in antiquity. The hilltop is part of a wider, integrated, archaeological and historical landscape. That part lying to the eastern side of the hilltop was especially important in prehistoric times and subsequently, in the early historic period, it became the royal demesne of the kings of Tara.

The planned route of the M3 toll-motorway and major floodlit interchange at Blundelstown (lying little more than 1.5km from the ‘Banqueting Hall’ on the hilltop) will cut through the heart of this exceptionally sensitive landscape. In so doing it will irreparably damage the cultural integrity of this internationally significant archaeological complex.