When Tara was saved by three famous names

IN the early years of the last century considerable damage was inflicted on the Rath of the Synods on the Hill of Tara by the British Israelites who believed lost tribesmen of Israel had settled in Ireland and had buried the Ark of the Covenant on the hill.

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.