The European Association of Archaeologists was persuaded to withdraw a highly critical statement on the M3 motorway by archaeologists acting for the Department of the Environment and the National Roads Authority (NRA).
Documents obtained by The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act also show that the department believes that "any initiative to re-route the road can only come from the road authority [ Meath County Council] - NRA".
Though its chief archaeologist, Brian Duffy, said in April 2000 that a route running east of the Hill of Skryne was his "favourite" archaeologically, he later defended the decision to run the motorway through the valley between Skryne and the Hill of Tara.
Mr Duffy's earlier view was that "all corridors between Tara and Skreen [ Skryne] were likely to encounter more archaeology" than a route running farther east. But he suggested this could be "mitigated against by prudent design . . . to avoid known sites".
A report by consultant archaeologists Margaret Gowen and Company concluded that a route east of Skryne would be "the least intrusive" - a view endorsed by William Cumming, senior architect, who said all the other routes would have a "major visual impact" on Tara.
By November 2002, Mr Duffy was disputing claims that the M3 would have a "devastating effect" on the archaeological landscape.
"The proposed road will be further away from the Hill of Tara than the existing N3 and can be screened by planting," he wrote.
In May 2004, the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) posted a statement on its website (www.e-e-a.org) saying that it had "learnt with alarm of the routing of the new M3 motorway through the landscape near the internationally significant Hill of Tara".
The EAA said the Government "has not taken all necessary steps to mitigate the effects" of the motorway; there had been "limited" geophysical survey work, while the test-trenching being carried out was "both destructive and unlikely to yield much information".
It urged the Government to "re-think its approach to the archaeology of this unique and highly significant landscape. If at all possible, the road should be re- routed away from the Tara area altogether".
It also called for test-trenching to be "halted immediately". After this was challenged by Ms Gowen, Irish representative in the EAA (and later by Mr Duffy, who had alerted her to it), the association's earlier statement was removed from its website and replaced by a neutral one saying it was "studying" the situation.
Mary Deevy, the NRA's project archaeologist for the M3, also wrote to Prof Anthony Harding of the EAA, complaining about the "gross inaccuracies" in its original statement which had "conveyed a false image of the professionalism of Irish archaeologists".
Prof Harding told Mr Duffy in an e-mail on June 1st, 2004, that he now realised the EAA had "strayed into difficult territory" on the Tara issue. "It appears that we have unwittingly entered a debate without having the full facts, and I apologise for this," he wrote.
The Department of the Environment was also critical of the "tone" of responses by the National Museum of Ireland (NMI) to applications for archaeological licences along the route of the M3, suggesting that this amounted to a separate "archaeological planning inquiry".
Officials were told in an e-mail on February 27th, 2003, by Dave Fadden, then principal officer in the national monuments section, that the department should reply in writing noting its observations. "Give me a covering memo rebutting the museum's obs," he wrote.
Mr Duffy also had an input. The issues raised by the museum "do not relate to artefactual conservation or storage . . . I recommend that a letter be issued acknowledging receipt of the NMI letter and noting that the issues raised are outside its statutory remit".
The question of whether a wider "zone of protection" had been established around Tara also became an issue. This was referred to in Margaret Gowen and Company's August 2000 route selection report, in the context of an archaeological programme on the Discovery channel.
Kevin Cullen, principal officer in the national monuments section, wrote in December 2004 that the area shown on the official map of Tara in the Record of Monuments and Places had not been extended since 1996, "despite statements to the contrary in some publications".
In February 2004, before a Unesco delegation visited Co Meath, the Paris-based organisation asked if the Government intended extending the World Heritage Site covering Brú na Bóinne to Tara, it was informed that there were "no plans" to seek such an extension.
