I really wonder when the M3 is finally built will we look back and wonder what the fuss was all about? Some years ago there was similar doom and gloom about the "destruction" of the Glen of the Downs. Once the road was built, everyone realised that the "anti" lobby had grossly exaggerated the environmental impact of the road. Maybe Tara is different, but its hard to forget the story of the boy who cried wolf...
Bertie will definitely NOT sack either Cullen or Roche. In Bertie's book, electoral considerations in Waterford and Wicklow matter far more than competence or leadership qualities. Expect Cullen to be Minister for Defence or Community Affairs. Roche will end up in a similarly low-profile role such as Social & Family Affairs.
I really wonder when the M3 is finally built will we look back and wonder what the fuss was all about? Some years ago there was similar doom and gloom about the "destruction" of the Glen of the Downs. Once the road was built, everyone realised that the "anti" lobby had grossly exaggerated the environmental impact of the road. Maybe Tara is different, but its hard to forget the story of the boy who cried wolf...
I cannot see the M3 alone being of much benefit as the major bottle neck is at the Blanchardstown roundabouts. The M3 will just bring traffic faster down to those bottlenecks and make them even worse.
The only solution is to get the Navan rail link up and running before 2015.
Excuse me if this comes across rude but that has to be the single most ignorant statement I've read regarding the Tara fiasco.
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The Glen of The Downs is or was a nature reserve... It's not the only one.
Tara is unique in it's importance to Ireland since it's use as a seat of kings and ....
...if you don't care, that says more about you than the place itself
The house is built now that I have been dreaming about for years. Every week I drive down from Dublin, due south through County Wicklow into County Wexford. I was born and brought up near there.
This journey to the new house where I write belongs to memory. A few spots along that stretch of road have all the resonance and flavor of childhood, but most of the road has changed beyond recognition. The narrow winding road has become mostly motorway - anodyne, anonymous, flavorless. I love it.
I wish I missed the old narrow, familiar road. But I do not. I love the efficiency, the modernity, the coolness of the new road. I love getting to Dublin in an hour and a half rather than two hours. I love driving freely in the outside lane, rather than being stuck forever behind a tractor or a cattle truck.
Nonetheless, when, a number of years ago, they were widening the road that runs through a nature reserve called the Glen of the Downs, I supported the protesters, mainly young people who moved there and lived in the trees. I spoke in a television debate in their favor, pointing out that Irish governments since independence have seldom been willing to put our precious heritage before crude, quick development. They would, if the opportunity arose, run a motorway through the Hill of Tara, the most important ancient Irish site.
Until recently, this idea might be useful in a heated debate as a worst case, impossible to contemplate, on a par with selling your granny. But this now is the prospect we face in Ireland. Despite protests from many distinguished archaeologists and historians, it seems likely that in the next few weeks, the government will announce that it is going ahead with plans to build a four-lane highway and a busy interchange close to the Hill of Tara.
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For commuters who drive each day to work in Dublin from towns and villages in County Meath, where Tara lies, it might cut 20 minutes off the journey. It will make them happy as the road to Wexford makes me happy. But it seems almost beyond belief that Ireland, awash with new money and enormous economic confidence, cannot find another route for the road and leave for generations to come a heritage that has been left to us.
We lost in the Glen of the Downs, in spite of the fact that we were right - there has been no decrease in journey time for people using that road. We lost in Carrickmines as corrupt rezoning ploughed a road through a national monument. When it comes to the M3, however, we will win because of the political change in this State and the realisation that the roads-based policy does not work. We are not willing to lose our archaeological past or give up our sense of ourselves and from whence we come. The current political mood questions where we are now and the way the Government wants to move forward. It is bent on building roads and servicing the building industry at whatever cost. That is its idea of progress. It is not progress, it is destruction, it is bad transport and social planning and, for a party that wraps itself in a republican mantle, it is destroying the essence of our heritage and our ability to understand it.
Is that a real picture ? Is that road really there ? I ve yet to visit the henge.
Is that a real picture ? Is that road really there ? I ve yet to visit the henge.
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