Reality bypassed on the road to Tara

OVER the centuries some of Ireland’s most eminent scholars - John O’Donovan, George Petrie, R.A.S. Macalister, to name but a few - have engaged with the history and archaeology of Tara, and its myth and legend.

Thiers is a common endeavour to learn more about this extraordinary place and determine fact from fiction.

More recent research, most notably by Conor Newman and Edel Bhreathnach on behalf of the Discovery Programme, has advanced this work to the point where we are now closer to an understanding of Tara than at any stage since the first detailed description of the visible monuments were committed to the pages of the ‘Dindgnai Temrach’ (The Landmarks of Tara) around the year AD1000.

We are none the wiser, however, regarding the NRA’s choice of ‘preferred’ M3 route through the Tara-Skryne valley in the light of the recent rash of one-page adverts which purported to distinguish the ‘true facts’ from the ‘myth.’

Are we to understand that the NRA has by-passed reality?

Joe Fenwick

Department of Archaeology

NUI Galway