A blog about things that interest me, politics, news, media, architecture, development, environment, local history, secularism, web, dublin ireland, tara

Contact me at expectationlost@gmail.com

Wednesday 7 November 2007

Rath Lugh monument finally on a map?

So finally there is a drawing of where Rath Lugh is from government survey done during the summer.

The map of Rath Lugh (PDF)

The blue line is the Rath and the red line is extended preservation zone.

Rath Lugh Temporary Preservation order.

Here is a plan of the motorway overlayed on the new map.

Here is the new map of Rath Lugh overlayed on an aerial photo of the strip examination.

In the second image above the motorway brushes the red line, the now extended preservation zone, but looking at the aerial photo from 2003/4 you can see that the road clearly transgresses the red circle to affect the blue circle outlining the Rath.

Apparently the NRA archaeologists acknowledge that the distance from the motorway has change but there is just confusion over this which you can read more of here. And here an earlier report from January when they first started to dig into the esker and move the boundary further towards Rath Lugh.

So what does it mean for the campaign to reroute the road? To me the motorway clearly transgresses the national monument. Previously they said it would 'skirt it'

instead it skirts the base of the elevated promontory on which Rath Lugh is located, approximately 20m below, and will not interfere with the site itself or the view of this site from Tara.

I note the the protection order is temporary and the government has given itself the power to destroy any national monument it wishes so we will see how John Gormley and Mary Deevy will use high standards of archaeological practice to destroy another ancient site.