Without a shadow of a doubt a motorway along the route of the current N3 is needed. Cavan, where I grew up, is along this route so I know just how over-loaded it is. For the most part the routing of this new motorway, the M3, was straightforward, except near the town of Navan where the N3 passes through a very historic valley near the famous Hill of Tara. This area is considered to be one of the most important archaeological landscapes in Europe. Most of Ireland’s history has been played out there since it has been an important site for over 5,000 years. For this section of the road there were four different possible routes which would have varying impacts on the Tara archaeological landscape. One route would have had zero impact, avoiding the valley altogether, however, the route chosen does not avoid the valley. In fact, it passes between the main site on the top of the hill and a fort known to be part of the ancient defences of Tara. In other words, it passes right through the heart of this historic landscape.

[tags]M3, Tara, Irish Government, Archaeology[/tags]

This choice of routing has come under international criticism for destroying such an important part if our heritage. The government were taken to court over it but, ultimately, after much time-wasting and expense, they won. By not choosing the alternative route around the valley the government are responsible for holding up the work and wasting large amounts of money on legal bills. They must also have known they were taking a huge gamble. Given the area they had chosen to bulldoze their road through there was a significant risk the project would be halted by a major archaeological find. Should this happen even more money would be wasted and even more delays caused. There would also be a risk that if the site found was significant enough the road would have to be diverted along one of the other alternative routes regardless. The government had to be aware of this as it happened in 2005 when a road had to be diverted to avoid a major Viking site in Waterford. To this day no one has been able to explain to me why the government chose to disregard our heritage and waste everyone’s time and money fighting court cases to force a road down a route which is littered with further risks. However, the fact remains that they did, and they have now invested a significant amount of tax payer’s money into this route making it very hard, politically, for them to U-turn at this stage.

It was just yesterday that the Minister for transport ceremonially turned the first sod on the project. Today, a major archaeological site along the route came to light. The site seems to be very significant because of the type of site it is (a henge), and it’s size “approximately three football fields”. Henges are rare, 80m henges rarer still. Even from what little we know about it at this stage it’s clear that this is a site of great significance. So, it appears the government’s gamble with our money has not paid off. They now have a real dilemma on their hands.

The government have to decided between doing the right thing, and saving their political hides. The fact that there is an election coming up on the 24th of May won’t make this any easier for them. The right thing to do would be to re-route the road outside the valley as they should have done in the first place. Since people have been pointing out that this would happen for ages doing a u-turn now would be highly embarrassing for the government. Deciding to bulldoze such an important site during an election month would likely also back fire. So, my guess is that they will do nothing till after the election. However, I will be judging them by how they deal with this. If they don’t have the backbone to swallow their pride and do the right thing I will hold that against them. I hope many others will do the same.