Madam, - I write as an Irish archaeologist living and working in England to contrast the attitude of an Bord Pleanála in approving the M3 route through the Tara-Skryne valley with that of the English authorities to the A303 and A344 which pass Stonehenge.
The Irish plan is to build a motorway at an estimated cost of €680 million over one of the richest archaeological landscapes of Europe, 1.3 kilometres from the unique religious and cultural site of the Hill of Tara.
In England it is proposed to remove roads passing close to Stonehenge by grassing over one and by burying the other in a tunnel of a minimum length of 2 kilometres at an estimated cost of just under £200 million in order to remove traffic and restore the tranquillity of the landscape.
As an emigrant I ask myself, sadly, which country is currently showing respect to its own culture: that which spends to preserve its heritage or that which spends to desecrate it. - Yours, etc.,
Dr NIAMH WHITFIELD,
Faroe Road,
London W14.
Madam, - The impressive list of signatures appended to Monday's letter on this subject is an eloquent testament to the importance with which this urgent matter is regarded, not only in Ireland, but in the wider academic community.
It is extraordinary that this kind of letter needs to be written; the worldwide importance of cultural heritage sites has surely become an unquestioned truth. Not, apparently, when it comes to planning in Ireland.
Hard-pressed commuters, already seething at the delays caused by the controversy at Carrickmines Castle, should lay the blame where it belongs - not with those who wish to preserve important sites from destruction, but with those who blithely draw convenient lines on maps and ignore anything which cannot be valued in euro and cent. - Yours, etc.
HELEN LITTON,
Eglinton Road,
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4.