Hill of Tara: nominated for World Heritage Site status

“The Tara landscape has been nominated by the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society (MAHS) for inclusion in UNESCO’s tentative list of World Heritage Sites (WHS) currently being drawn up by the Department of the Environment.”

The controversial motorway that has been driven through the landscape around the Hill of Tara has provoked much anger and sorrow for this act of vandalism by the Irish government. In an effort to stop further development,  a proposal was made by Tara Campaigners  to put Tara on a tentative list of proposed World Heritage sites…

The Meath Archaeological and Historical Society have now put foward their submissions as well,

“…the landscape is a unique archaeological, historical, ceremonial, political and cultural landscape focused around the Hill of Tara complex, which served as a necropolis, sanctuary, ritual and royal centre for successive peoples over thousands of years.

“Apart from the dense and varied collection of archaeological sites on the Hill of Tara itself, the Tara landscape comprises a rich and diverse collection of archaeological sites and complexes from the prehistoric to the early historic and medieval periods, including burial monuments, habitation sites, ritual and religious sites and complexes, hillforts, enclosures, souterrains and linear embankments, all testifying to continuous settlement and ceremonial use by different cultures over the millennia…”

See press report here

Whatever the outcome, nothing can be done to retrieve the despoiled landscape round the Hill of Tara from the intrusion of the new motorway, but at this late stage at least a recognition of its importance to world heritage can be recorded, and further development stopped.