Sir, – The recent announcement that Dublin is to have an Independence Trail is most welcome to those still campaigning to save the GPO/Moore Street 1916 battleground – the only extant battleground in 20th-century British and Irish history.
Under the current planning application by Chartered Land this historic area is to be obliterated to make way for a shopping centre development. Under that proposal the planned freedom trail would have to be routed through, of all things, a “Celtic Tiger” shopping mall.
The inclusion of this historic area in the proposed Independence Trail is official recognition, at long last, that the campaign to preserve and restore the area and its “laneways of history” as An Taoiseach describes them is now accepted as the way forward.
The Save 16 Moore Street Campaign Committee deserves great credit for its tireless efforts over a decade to save this historic area from the wrecking ball. There is now a golden opportunity for the State to preserve and develop this battlefield site into a historic and cultural quarter for future generations as a 1916 Centenary Project. It is imperative that a new plan is drawn up immediately to see this through, with input from appropriate State agencies under National Museum supervision, in the national interest. – Yours, etc,
JAMES CONNOLLY
HERON,
Concerned Relatives of the
Signatories to the 1916
Proclamation,
C/o Oxford Road,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.