New O'Connell Street Development

ETA Photos of the wooden models at archiseek. And views of Moore Street tour I posted about on Archseek, keep following the O'Connell street sorry there.

Finally after years of legal wrangling and speculation and deliberate dereliction of our national main street plans have been revealed of new mall for O'Connell street. 'Dublin Central'

RTE: The plans cover a 5.5-acre area known as Dublin Central which stretches from O'Connell Street to Moore Street and from Henry Street to Parnell Street.

See Irish Times:€1.2bn mall scheme to transform O'Connell Street area and Property Week:€1.25bn Dublin mixed-use scheme planned for details.

Another Irish Times article: €180m spent assembling 'Dublin Central' site describes how they want about buying all the building on face and behind O'Connell Street, Henry Street, Moore Street and Parnell Street.

Chartered Land are the developers who built the new Dundrum Town Centre, the refurbished Ilac Centre and Grand Canal Square and South King Centre.

Google Map API Crib links

A list of links how-to's and example I used to make my Tara landscape Google map APIs( as a reference for me). Tara Hill Skryne Valley Google Map

Made possible mainly by GeoXml and labeledmarker examples of which I found at Googlemapsbooks.com and some examples at uwmike.com/maps/ and lots of detailed basic howto at Mike at Blackpool Community Church Javascript Team!? Also Mapki API reference page and the Google map API and Google Map API discusion groups

Del.ico.us is good way to find examples by searching the bookmarks of people who bookmarked the same thing as you

Googlemap infowindows are functional but clunky.

Tara: Kingship and Landscape

This blogpost is based on the research of Conor Newman from the book The kingship and Landscape of Tara edited by Edel Breathnach. These are my amateur maps I would be happy to have any corrections, distinguishing between myth and fact is quite difficult even for the academics and there is also a lack of data and research on Tara. The Tara kingship and landscape covers a wide area of the country and even the royal city of Tara covers some 20km2 comparable in size to the other royal cities in Ireland. The planned M3 motorway transgresses the inner core of this area.

Most societal areas are determined by rivers and their watersheds and also heights. To define the Tara kingship and landscape we first have to define all the areas that bound it.

The Tara K&L forms a triangular area bounded by rivers on three sides on the western side is the one of the largest rivers in Ireland the Boyne, to the east the Hurley river and to the south the watersheds of the Boycetown and Boyne rivers and Dunboyne Ward Rivers.

The Hill of Tara is the well known place where there is concentration of monuments but kingship and landscape of Tara extends much further beyond that and can be describe by 3 main areas; The Hill of Tara, the boundary of the defensive forts and the overall area of influence of the kingship of Tara. The Tara outer area was also known as Brega at some point.

Here are the areas with modern towns and road map.

The Bronze age defensive ring of raths boundary with modern road map and towns. This can be compared to the a satellite map on earlier post and Con Conner's map of the Royal city of Tara.

Most of the Tara monuments were built in the neolithic and early bronze age, with defensive forts built in the bronze age and ritual monuments altered to defensive use at the hill in the age.

So the purpose of this post and these maps is to show that the Tara kingship and landscape was spread over a very large area and that the M3 motorway certainly transgresses the larger area but it is also transgressing the inner core area of bronze age defensive raths and the many monuments within that area, affecting the focal point of the entire area which is the Hill of Tara. The Tara landscape was described by Fenwick, Breathnach and Newman in their submission to an Bord Pleanalain 2003 as

The core Tara landscape can be best defined by highlighting the following defensive sites: Skryne, Rath Lugh, Rath Miles, Ringlestown Rath, Riverstown defensive earthwork, and Rath Maeve.

In blue the planned M3 crossing the core Tara area near the hill of Tara.

Googleearth kml's of the three basic areas

Could someone define the Tara Hill and Valley landscape?

There has been lots of talk about the Tara Valley landscape but it hasn't been defined.

The core Tara landscape/complex can be best defined by highlighting the following defensive sites: Skryne, Rath Lugh, Rath Miles, Ringlestown Rath, Riverstown defensive earthwork, and Rath Maeve.

I know it probably couldn't be defined exactly down to the last metre but this map added to be by Con Conner is the only visual description(*) I've seen to attempt to define the Royal City of Tara.

Map by Con Connor of druidschool.com

The Druid expert suggest that the extent of the Royal City is determined by the defensive raths on high points around Tara. Although all 10 of NRA proposed routes enter this zone with the archaeologist's/conservationist preferred choice of those 10 the 'orange route' (which goes to the west away from the Gabhra Valley) cuts off the (Ringlestown) rath circled in the bottom left of this picture. (Googlemap of NRA routes) Heres a capture of my version of Connor's investigation which can be explored on googleearth.

Are the yellow lines the extent of the Royal City of Tara landscape.

I have also added to the googlemap the outline of the Bru na Boinne national park ( around New grange Knowth and Dowth )as example of trying to define a national monument and to compare the size with any future national park for Tara.

A archaeological protection zone and buffer zone for development.

Report on the M3 motorway impact on the Tara landscape. by Edel Bhreathnach, Conor Newman, Joseph Fenwick. tara hill