When Tara was saved by three famous names
They carried out extensive and indiscriminate excavations on the rath "to the scandal and indignation of the district", as reported at that time.
An article written under the heading "Who is to be scalped for this?" by a friend of Arthur Griffith, and published in the Meath Chronicle of March 16, 1907, said: "It (the excavation work) was stopped through fear of exasperated public opinion. In any other civilised country, the Government would have intervened to protect an ancient monument. The government of Ireland did nothing of the kind. Were it not for the action taken by a few patriotic Irishmen, the vandalism would have been allowed to proceed. Arthur Griffith, Douglas Hyde, WB Yeats and a few others took the lead in stopping the desecration and in hunting the hunters of curios out of Meath. All honour to them.
"But, meanwhile, who should be held responsible for the outrage the Government, the landlord, or the digger after the Ark of the Covenant? I should say the three of them. Men have been sent to prison for less. But in Ireland there is no plank bed and hard tack for such offenders. They sleep upon the softest mattresses in the country and feed on the fat of the land."
Even after 98 years of nature's healing power, the damage done is still evident. Much worse, and beyond healing, will be the damage done to the Hill of Tara, and to the landscape of which it is an integral part, by the M3 and the massive interchange, 1.5km and 1.2km distant respectively, from the archaeological complex on top of the hill.
The fate of Tara and its environment now depends on the signature of one man, Dick Roche, Minister for the Environment. By which of the options open to him will he and the Taoiseach be remembered?
Tommy Hamill
Ballinter
Navan
Co Meath
