Sole NYC Tara Protestor

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Irish Voice News

Sole NYC Tara Protestor

July 19, 2007

By Cahir O’Doherty

CAMPAIGNERS opposed to the new M3 motorway running through the historic Tara Valley in Co. Meath scheduled a series of demonstrations in three different countries last Friday.

Tara Watch, the volunteer Irish and British organization established to highlight what they see as the demolition of an important heritage sight, held protests outside Leinster House in Dublin and the Irish Embassy in London.

However, the scheduled New York protest at the Irish Consulate drew only one protestor, Aoife Rivera Serrano, a Puerto Rican political activist and member of the New York City Irish Freedom Committee.

“Tara belong to the world, not just Ireland, and all citizens of the world are concerned with it. That’s why demonstrations are taking place in Dublin, London, Brussels, New York, Chicago and elsewhere,” Rivera Serrano said.

Noting that the New York protest had been organized via the Save Tara website on the Internet, Rivera Serrano was obviously disappointed with the low turnout. She also expressed her concern about the apparent volt-face made by the new Green Party Minister for the Environment John Gormley concerning the issue.

“Minister Gormley argues that the M3 route is something that was planned by the previous Fianna Fail government and that he can’t do anything about it. What I find fascinating is that when 75% of the Irish population is telling you that they don’t want this area desecrated, I don’t understand how they can still proceed with the plan? It makes no sense to me.

“Tara is a part of the Irish patrimony, but it also belongs to the world, like Stonehenge for example.”

Irish campaigners told the press they are enraged by what they describe as the Green Party’s unconscionable Irish election pact with Fianna Fail to agree to the M3 motorway project, and they criticized the announcement by Gormley that the government will not re-route the road despite European criticism.

A press representative at the Department of the Environment told the Irish Voice, “Minister Gormley is constrained by the National Monuments Act. He had no part of the discussions that selected the route, which was already decided by the Irish Planning Board. The local authority and the National Roads Authority had selected the route before he was minister.”

Fergus O’Dowd, opposition party Fine Gael’s spokesperson for the Environment told the Irish Voice, “We would have preferred an alterative route, one further away from Tara itself. We were assured by Irish archeologists however that this route was not of national significance.

“They were proved wrong on this, but it would not be reasonable to stop the route at this stage because cars travel bumper to bumper all day at 10 miles an hour because of lack of infrastructure. Our view is that the road must proceed.”

Darren Delahunty, one of the organizers of the London protest, said: “Irish people in the U.K. are outraged at the refusal of the Irish authorities to try and proceed with the road, even when the public are so against it.”

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