The Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Site, containing Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, in County Meath Ireland, is under threat from the N2 Slane Bypass and the N51 road developments.Slane Bypass will skirt World Heritage Site The Irish Government is proposing to build a dual-carriageway, within 500 metres of the UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS) of
Brú na Bóinne in Ireland.
The route of the proposed N2 Slane Bypass will skirt the the three main prehistoric sites of the
Brú na Bóinne Complex;
Newgrange, Knowth and
Dowth. The proposed Slane Bypass will provide a dual carriage to the east of Slane Village on the N2 National Primary Route. The new road scheme will cross the River Boyne on a new bridge at a location approximately 1.1km to the east of the existing N2 Slane Bridge. Ongoing work includes the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO).
The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the project acknowledges that the new road will impact a number of the 44 archaeological sites within 500 metres of the 3.5km bypass, with a high potential to uncover many more sites once construction work commences, many of which will no doubt be part and parcel of the complex of archaeological sites at the
Bend of the Boyne, County Meath.
Although just outside the planned buffer zone between road and archaeological site, the bypass will still pass through an area protected under the County Development Plan and the European Landscape Convention and the Valletta Convention, and be alarmingly close to the
Knowth passage tomb from where the new road will be both visible and audible.
The
Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Site Management Plan (2002) sets out the main objectives and policies of an integrated management plan for the Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Site. The scheme was originally progressed as a single carriageway scheme. However a Feasibility study for the N2 route recommends a dual carriageway. While there will be a visual impact from the river, the Environmental Impact Statement says there will be negligible impact on the site.
The planned new section of the N2 is 3.5km long and would cross the river Boyne on a new bridge at a location 1.1km to the east of the existing Slane Bridge, which has been the scene of several traffic incidents involving heavy goods vehicles. It is estimated that over a thousand HGVs pass through the centre of Slane village every day; this volume of traffic has led local residents to campaign for a ban on HGVs in Slane, and this was adopted by the county council in April 2009 and cited as the main argument for the bypass. Since 2002, when the County Council introduced additional traffic signals and an overhead gantry to control HGVs, the frequency and severity of these incidents have reduced considerably.
When presented with the statistics for the sheer volume of traffic and accident history it is difficult to argue against the fact that Slane desperately needs a by-pass. But what does not make any sense is why they have opted for a route that skirts the edge of Newgrange and Knowth, national symbols of Ireland and placing their World Heritage status at risk, above other alternatives that would avoid the
Brú na Bóinne complex.
The road plan would appear to be in breach of the 2002 management Plan for the Site but when it comes to building roads nothing would appear to be Sacred and the label of World Heritage Site is meaningless. Here we have a unique archaeological site, predating Stonehenge and the Pyramids, yet the Irish Government seems to show hold little value to its own rich heritage. The so-called passage tombs of the
Brú na Bóinne contain the greatest collection of megalithic art in Europe. It is a rare collection and a national treasure.
Sacred Sites by the River Boyne
There are at least 40 significant archaeological sites in and around the Boyne Valley, many of these ancient monuments have maintained an association with Irish Mythology which has persisted through generations since prehistory.
Brú na Bóinne is a vast complex of Neolithic chamber tombs, standing stones, henges and other prehistoric enclosures, with over forty passage tombs and was built with sophistication and a knowledge of science and astronomy, which is most well known in Newgrange when light from the winter solstice sun enters the 60ft passage just after sunrise. Astronomical calculations have shown that when Newgrange was constructed some 5,000 years ago first light would have entered the passage exactly at sunrise.
In Irish mythology, Newgrange is called the Brú of Óengus, the home of
Óengus mac ind-Og, (
Son of Youth) sometimes referred to as simply '
Mac Og' who was born at the start of the shortest day at the Brú. Son of the
Dagda, the Good God, and
Boann the personification of the River Boyne, Mac Og is the Irish god of love, eternally youthful, often equated with the deity Mabon/Maponus, the divine son of the divine mother Matrona or Modron.
Knowth, the largest mound in Ireland, has turned out to be a treasure-house of megalithic art, with 17 satellite mounds around the main mound. Knowth is one of the grandest of the 300 or so passage-tombs in Ireland. The large mound contains not one, but two great passage-tombs, orientated toward the east and the west respectively and suspected of being aligned to the equinoxes. The great treasure of Knowth is the number of beautifully decorated stones of the passages. The walls of both tombs are highly decorated with engraved cup-marks, geometrical designs and spirals.
The Sundial - Kerbstone 51 Knowth (Martin Brennan), the '
house of darkness', is the oldest of the three principal tombs of the
Brú na Bóinne complex, with a main passage 27ft long, constructed of upright stones supporting the roof lintels and divided by three sill-stones, one inscribed in a similar way to those at Newgrange. The passage leads to a cruciform chamber with more decorated stones and a large stone basin (?) in the middle. A further series of small chambers lead off an opening in the south-westerly corner of the main chamber. From the beginning of October to the end of February the sun sends its rays from the south-west into the chamber. As the sun drops progressively lower in the sky as it approaches the winter solstice, the beam travels first over the sill stone, then enters the chamber and finally shines directly onto the stones at the back of the chamber. Although many interpretations have been offered, we do not fully understand the decorated engravings on the orthostats of the Irish passage tombs, but the symbols on
'The Stone of the Seven Suns' at Dowth, as at other sites, must surely possess an astronomical function.
Dowth has suffered generations of abuse, more than half the original mound is now gone, the stone having been taken for road-making and building materials. The Annals of Tighernach tell of Dowth being plundered and burnt in 1059, and the Annals of the Four Masters record three battles at Dowth, and a later burning in 1170. And in the last century, would you believe, even a house has been built on the summit of the mound. Hasn't Dowth suffered enough at the hands of man?
Tara
Also close to the River Boyne are the important sites of
Fourknocks and
Tara, the ancient capital of Ireland.
The Hill of Tara was once the ancient seat of power in Ireland with 142 kings said to have reigned there in prehistoric and historic times. In ancient Irish religion and mythology Tara was the sacred place of dwelling for the gods, and was the entrance to the otherworld. There are a large number of monuments and earthen structures on the Hill of Tara. The earliest settlement at the site was in the Neolithic, the
Mound of the Hostages being constructed c.2500BC, one of only two monuments at Tara to have been excavated. Recently the site of a huge temple measuring 170 metres and made of over 300 wooden posts, was discovered at Tara.
On the Brink [1]The Heritage Council issued a warning in the year 2000 that one in ten of Ireland's archaeological monuments were being wiped out every decade. At that time, ten years ago, they estimated that about
a third of sites had already been lost – and since then we have seen development at an increasing rate.
Intensive agricultural development throughout the 20th Century has already eradicated many entire archaeological sites, the ghostly remains witnessed by mere crop marks. With the current obsession for building ever more and more roadways, you cannot feel confident for the future of these archaeological sites in Ireland.
Only a few years ago Tara itself was victim to the road building scheme of the M3 motorway, constructed through the
Tara-Skryne Valley, running directly though the heart of some of Ireland's most sacred prehistoric landscape.
During construction of the M3 a very special henge site was found during excavations at
Lismullen. The European Parliament Petition Committee and European Environmental Commissioner proved a breach of the European Union Law by the Irish government, who failed to make a new environment impact assessment of the motorway M3 plan after discovery of Lismullen Henge, and vowed the Irish government to revise the motorway plan and protect common Irish and European heritage. Yet, the Irish government decided to proceed with the construction of the motorway M3 as planned. Needless to say, the road works totally eradicated the henge.
Lismullen Henge site highlighted
In 2003, the newly constructed M1 motorway and Drogheda by-pass sliced a massive chunk through the
Hill of Rath. Drogheda continues to expand and encroach towards
Brú na Bóinne, now just three miles from Newgrange and less than half that distance form the easternmost surviving monument of the complex known as
Site Q. One of the biggest monuments of the complex, Site Q is a giant embanked enclosure aligned on Summer Solstice sunrise, probably dating to the Bronze Age. The population of Drogheda, currently at 30,000 is predicted to more than double in the next ten years.
Although orientated east-west, the axis of Knowth's east chamber does not correctly align with the equinox, seemingly disturbed by efforts to conserve early Christian structures at the site, it is accurately directed towards Dowth, which is offset from the east-west line by a few degrees. This apparent alignment with Dowth does not appear to be coincidental as all of the three major mounds of the
Brú na Bóinne possess passages directed to other significant sites. At Dowth, one passage points to Newgrange, the other to Tara. A passage at Newgrange is directed towards the Fourknocks complex, and as we have seen Knowth targets Dowth. The reasoning for this correlation between the sites is not yet fully understood but does suggest that visibility between these ancient sites was a very important feature in their construction. If the current rate of road building continues in this area the interrelation between these and other as yet unknown sites is likely to be lost forever.
The amount of ancient monuments lost to so-called development is nothing short of alarming. Who knows how many Megaliths have been ripped out of the soil , broken up in pits or robbed for later building work in the past. The treatment of our sacred heritage is appalling, we must preserve what we have left and stop ploughing roads through the middle of it.
The Archaeological Institute of America, The World Monuments Fund, and The Landmarks Foundation are amongst the international bodies that have lodged objections to the road plan but these were received too late to be considered by the planning board. Sounds like Tara all over again! The WHS site is already adversely affected by the M1 motorway, completed in 2003, which straddles the western boundary of the site. A report made by UNESC/ICOMOS after a reactive monitoring mission shows that the continued listing of the site is in question, as a result of various inappropriate developments since incription in 1993.
The
Save Newgrange campaign was set up in January to ensure that
Brú na Bóinne complex receives the legal protection it is entitled to under Irish, EU and international law.
See: http://www.savenewgrange.orghttp://www.mythicalireland.comhttp://www.knowth.comhttp://www.carrowkeel.com/index.htmlNote1. With due acknowledgement to
The Island of the Setting Sun: In Search of Ireland's Ancient Astronomers by Anthony Murphy and Richard Moore, The Liffey Press, 2008. (2nd Revised Edition)
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In addition to the sum already raised from a nationwide fund-raising drive overseen by The Art Fund, an independent charity, the Government grant means that the hoard will be purchased and displayed permanently in the UK. The Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery will receive the donated sum to jointly purchase the hoard from its discoverer Terry Herbert and Fred Johnson, the owner of the property where it was found.
