Royal Tara extends well beyond the hill

WE strongly reject the implication that we have ‘hoodwinked’ the public into thinking that the proposed road goes over the Hill of Tara, contained in recent testimony to the Oireachtas Committee on Transport.

We have always made it clear that our concerns are about the impact such a development would have on the archaeological and historical landscape around the Hill of Tara.

Our detailed archaeological, historical and literary analyses, carried out to the highest professional standards, has demonstrated the immediate hinterland of the Hill of Tara to be the so-called royal estate or demesne (ferann ríg) of Tara. Royal estates are recognised in early Irish law (see Fergus Kelly’s Early Irish Farming, 403-4, 1997). There is incontrovertible evidence of a royal estate associated with the kingship of Tara.