OPW preventing people camping on the Hill of Tara on soltice night

sickpuppy32

My dad is gone from this earth 13 years now, one thing i always did with him since i was a kid and its a tradition i've always continued as an adult ( i'm 33) is camp overnight on the hill of tara on summer solstice night and be awake for the dawn of the longest day of the year. I'm not the only one, a lot of local families do this as well as a fair number of people including tourists, hippies, bikers, new agers, star watchers, nature lovers, white witches, druids etc. To a lot of people solstice night on tara is special for a variety of different reasons. Tonight however the OPW have a ring of steel around the site preventing this from happening. I've gone home with my daughter ( it was to be her first solstice night) but a lot of people are staying up there and making do, setting up camp on the edges of the road and whereever they can. What is the reason for this? There has never been any kind of trouble at this event but now it is banned. Is this punishment to those who objected to the motorway been bulldozed through the tara valley for the sole purpose of enriching a certain ministers relative and big development mates?

Rebelheart

sickpuppy32 wrote: »

My dad is gone from this earth 13 years now, one thing i always did with him since i was a kid and its a tradition i've always continued as an adult ( i'm 33) is camp overnight on the hill of tara on summer solstice night and be awake for the dawn of the longest day of the year. I'm not the only one, a lot of local families do this as well as a fair number of people including tourists, hippies, bikers, new agers, star watchers, nature lovers, white witches, druids etc. To a lot of people solstice night on tara is special for a variety of different reasons. Tonight however the OPW have a ring of steel around the site preventing this from happening. I've gone home with my daughter ( it was to be her first solstice night) but a lot of people are staying up there and making do, setting up camp on the edges of the road and whereever they can. What is the reason for this? There has never been any kind of trouble at this event but now it is banned. Is this punishment to those who objected to the motorway been bulldozed through the tara valley for the sole purpose of enriching a certain ministers relative and big development mates?

Sliabh na Caillí is a lot cooler. Tara, like Newgrange, is for the tourists. But I really shouldn't mention it because I don't want all these blow-ins coming to one of the most peaceful places I have ever found in Ireland so hold your tongue if you please.

sickpuppy32

Rebelheart wrote: »

Sliabh na Caillí is a lot cooler. Tara, like Newgrange, is for the tourists. But I really shouldn't mention it because I don't want all these blow-ins coming to one of the most peaceful places I have ever found in Ireland so hold your tongue if you please.

its ur temple, its my temple, respect for both

sickpuppy32

Rebelheart wrote: »

Sliabh na Caillí is a lot cooler. Tara, like Newgrange, is for the tourists. But I really shouldn't mention it because I don't want all these blow-ins coming to one of the most peaceful places I have ever found in Ireland so hold your tongue if you please.

i agree by the way but its the wrong time of year, mid summer and mid wonter for this very special place

j1smithy

sickpuppy32 wrote: »

Is this punishment to those who objected to the motorway been bulldozed through the tara valley for the sole purpose of enriching a certain ministers relative and big development mates?

Nonsense, that road needs to be built, ask any of the commuters stuck on that road... you'd swear from listening to the protesters it was going right over the hill of tara. The road is being put in a cutting to hide it from view. I mean come on a couple of fairy forts shouldn't stop progress. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for looking after our heritage, I just believe its more important to improve the quality of peoples lives that are actually alive.

If you want to find out why the OPW has changed its policy, best ask the OPW, not here. They will give you the real answer, with the logic behind it.

goldenbrown

j1smithy wrote: »

Nonsense, that road needs to be built, ask any of the commuters stuck on that road... you'd swear from listening to the protesters it was going right over the hill of tara. The road is being put in a cutting to hide it from view. I mean come on a couple of fairy forts shouldn't stop progress. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for looking after our heritage, I just believe its more important to improve the quality of peoples lives that are actually alive.

If you want to find out why the OPW has changed its policy, best ask the OPW, not here. They will give you the real answer, with the logic behind it.

don;t draw the little people and faeries on you brother..

sickpuppy32

j1smithy wrote: »

Nonsense, that road needs to be built, ask any of the commuters stuck on that road... you'd swear from listening to the protesters it was going right over the hill of tara. The road is being put in a cutting to hide it from view. I mean come on a couple of fairy forts shouldn't stop progress. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for looking after our heritage, I just believe its more important to improve the quality of peoples lives that are actually alive.

If you want to find out why the OPW has changed its policy, best ask the OPW, not here. They will give you the real answer, with the logic behind it.

i agree that the road needed to be built and noone objected to the original plan of building the road over the shortest distance over the plane of meath to the south of the hill where because it is so flat it would have also been cheaper and there are also little sites of histroical value there. The hill of tara is just the most obvious part of the whole historical Gabna valley (the tara valley). As well as the ancient sites, including rath lugh which is an ancient royal seat and the ancient temple which was "preserved by record" (aka bulldozed ), the motorway also goes over the place where the fianna took their famous last stand and where brian boru broke the back of the vikings ( clontarf was a clean up operation compared to it). I did ask the OPW and all i got was guff about protecting the site even though the people who go to the hill have more respect for it then the governement

billycox

I officially hate these so called "Eco Warriors" now. They set up camp at the hill of Tara to try and stop the M3 from being made near it, which they failed by the way, all they managed to achieve was getting camping and fires banned at the hill of Tara, nice one guys.
We had OPW and Garda on our asses all night and all we wanted to do was celebrate our heritage. Also that protest camp they left was like a dump, the amount of rubbish they left was disgraceful.

sickpuppy32

billycox wrote: »

I officially hate these so called "Eco Warriors" now. They set up camp at the hill of Tara to try and stop the M3 from being made near it, which they failed by the way, all they managed to achieve was getting camping and fires banned at the hill of Tara, nice one guys.
We had OPW and Garda on our asses all night and all we wanted to do was celebrate our heritage. Also that protest camp they left was like a dump, the amount of rubbish they left was disgraceful.

i can understand ur point and even agree with it a little. I supported the anti motorway campaign. there seemed to be 2 groups involved, one which were on the coal front stopping the bulldozers doen in the valleyand another who seemed perfectly happy to be on the hill pretending to be hippies

Birdnuts

j1smithy wrote: »

Nonsense, that road needs to be built, ask any of the commuters stuck on that road... you'd swear from listening to the protesters it was going right over the hill of tara. The road is being put in a cutting to hide it from view. I mean come on a couple of fairy forts shouldn't stop progress. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for looking after our heritage, I just believe its more important to improve the quality of peoples lives that are actually alive.

If you want to find out why the OPW has changed its policy, best ask the OPW, not here. They will give you the real answer, with the logic behind it.

Yeah but why choose the most destructive route??:(

PS - Are you happy to pay more tolls?? I bet you anything as the country sinks deeper and deeper into an economic morass, more and more people will use the old route, this thing could become an expensive white elephant yet!! - Thankfully I live near the M7 and can avoid paying any tolls whether I want to go to Dublin, West or pretty much anywhere else:)

Seth Brundle

"the" road did not need to be built - "a" road needed to be built!
As it happens, the public weren't allowed to be involved in choosing which of the examined routes eventually became the chosen one.

Run_to_da_hills

Birdnuts wrote: »

Thankfully I live near the M7 and can avoid paying any tolls whether I want to go to Dublin, West or pretty much anywhere else:)

Don't count on it, you may yet see westlink style e/ANPR gantries spring up all over the country. If you notice many of the new motorway signage gantries are built like battleships and are well capable of supporting the hardware necessary for this sort of a "pay by distance" toll system