Madam, - We the undersigned would like to add our voices to those who are concerned about the recent discovery of an ancient Celtic structure along the path of the M3 motorway as it passes close to the Hill of Tara.
From the description that has been circulated, it is clearly of singular importance, documenting the ancient ritual life of the people who lived around Tara, and also the connections between those people and others who celebrated in similar structures in Leinster, Ulster, and Connacht.
Not only does it add to the vision of Tara, where people have been celebrating their lives and burying their dead for 5,000 years, but it also shows how much Ireland was one people, with similar rites happening throughout the island during all that time. As such, it rivals places in the New World such as Tikal, Monte Alban, Machu Picchu, Pueblo Bonito, the Great Serpent Mound, Cahokia, or indeed Stonehenge, in both cultural and spiritual importance.
The National Roads Authority was told that such sites would be encountered but seemingly refused to listen, secure in the apparent knowledge that all could be taken care of with prior survey. But this site shows that they were wrong. They were told that Tara wasn't just a site, but a landscape, a complex of monuments that, in combination with the topography, placenames, mythology, and history make this a uniquely well-preserved place of truly international importance.
It will suffer irrevocable damage if this road continues. It is bitterly ironic that this landscape has survived to the present due to careful custodianship in the past, based on thorough-going understanding and sensitivity, and it seems short-sighted, ill-conceived, and indeed arrogant to think that we will be doing less than our predecessors.
Now is the time to re-think the path of this motorway. Is it really the only path that it can take? We join Irish archaeologists and the public in asking the Irish Government to halt what is tantamount to the destruction of Ireland's archaeological heritage. An archaeological site of this importance warrants the re-routing of a motorway and some sort of guarantee for its continued survival in the future. - Yours, etc,
Dr SUSAN A. JOHNSTON, Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, Washington DC; Dr EMILY J. WEGLIAN, Department of Anthropology, Cuyahoga Community College, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
(Also signed by: Dr Genevieve Fisher, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University; Dr David Valentine, Dr Martha J. Tappen, Andrea J. Torgerson, Jeffery L. Adams, Matthew Hunstiger, Alexandra Moyer, Department of Anthropology, University of Minnesota; Dr Velana Huntington, Department of Anthropology, University of Iowa; Dr Carol S. Franklin, Dean of Social Science, Cuyahoga Community College; Dr Clare Wilkinson-Weber, Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Vancouver; Greg Bailey, University of Bristol; Gretchen Anderson, Science Museum of Minnesota; Stacey Camp, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Stanford University; Dr Ronald Hicks, Ball State University; Dr Charles E. Orser, Jr, Department of Anthropology, Illinois State University; Dr Melanie Fillios, University of Sydney; Dr Bettina Arnold, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Wendy J. Bacon, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania.)