| A Driving Need for Change Comment
It is a dilemma that is not new, especially here in Britain. But traffic
congestion and indeed gridlock is an ailment that is afflicting post-Celtic
Tiger Ireland and is causing those in government there to make some difficult
decisions.
The Hill of Tara is Ireland’s most sacred stretch of earth and one of
the most important ancient landscapes in Europe. With its passage tomb,
earthworks and pre-historical burial mounds, it is the mythical and ceremonial
capital of Ireland, dating back 4,000 years.
But now the landscape in Co. Meath, north-west of Dublin, looks set to
be the victim of what archaeologists have called the “worst case of state-sponsored
vandalism ever inflicted on Irish cultural heritage”.
The very heart and soul of Ireland, they say, is threatened by an Irish
Government decision to build a four-lane motorway through the valley alongside
the ancient site. It will involve and create a 25-acre stretch of a floodlit
motorway exchange half-a-mile from the hill itself that will slice through
what historians say is a hinterland of settlements and burial grounds.
It is a sad reflection on society that it has come to this. But perhaps
an inevitable one as Ireland shakes off the shackles of poverty and famine
and embraces the bright new future of wealth. Something has got to give.
St. Patrick is said to have converted the Irish to Christianity around
the area of the Hill of Tara and in 1843 Daniel O’Connell addressed a gathering
of 1million people there in his campaign for an Irish Parliament.
But in 21st century Ireland a new motorway is needed — the M3 — to ease
the traffic horror of towns along what is known as the Meath corridor. These
towns have become dormitory settlements for people working in post-Celtic
Tiger Dublin.
Those who cannot afford the house prices in the capital are moving further
and further outside it and doing like the rest of us here in Britain have
had to do for years — commute.
People in Meath are all too aware of the need for a solution to their
traffic problems. In rush-hour periods it takes two-and-a-half hours to
travel a stretch of road that can be covered in 30 minutes in the dead of
night.
On a good day you can see half the counties of Ireland from the Hill
of Tara. But it is not its beauty alone that matters. It is its archaeological
and historical importance as the heart and soul of Ireland and one of the
few prehistoric landscapes in Europe that is still intact.
There was much soul-searching before the decision to go ahead with the
motorway was taken. And it seems that the people stuck in the traffic jams
won the day.
Another part of old Ireland gone.
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