Madam, – You report (December 5th) on Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Eamon Ó Cuív’s support for the call for the site of the Battle of Aughrim to be developed as a tourist attraction in the same way as the Battle of the Boyne site has.
You report that “this battle,in which 7,000 people were slaughtered, is to this day celebrated by the Orange Order as a decisive victory for Protestants that changed the course of Irish history.”
It most certainly did – the defeat was followed by the complete submission of Ireland shortly thereafter.
There is a planning application before Dublin City Planning Authority at present that proposes not only to infringe upon the boundary of the National Monument in Moore Street but to demolish part of it to make way for the development of a giant retail development.
This monument was designated to honour the memory of the men and women of 1916 but remains in private ownership.
If Aughrim is, as the Minister believes, comparable to Culloden in terms of national strategic importance, psyche and tourist potential, then it surely follows that the same can be said of the Moore Street battleground.
How it is that the battleground sites of Aughrim and the Boyne that witnessed the death of the nation deserve priority in State funding over the site that witnessed its rebirth is baffling,to say the least!
The status of the Moore Street national monument deserves the utmost respect and any attempt to diminish it in any way is unacceptable. The guarantee for its continuing security and preservation is, of course, ownership by the State on behalf of the people. – Yours, etc,